Fanny Clamagirand

As a break from my current wall-to-wall Haydn listening (twelve more recordings of the symphonies on the way via Amazon), I had a sudden urge to listen to Camille Saint-Saëns' three violin concertos. Why on earth they are not played and heard regularly I cannot imagine. One of the mysteries of musical taste and fashion. I listened to the three concertos today played by Fanny Clamagirand, a superb French violinist. First class music. First class playing from Clamagirand. Excellent back-up from the Finnish orchestra. First class recording and price from Naxos. For what more can one ask? Frequently my family members comment on my enormous collection of recordings: “Do you really listen to them all?” No, I do not. But it is marvellous that, when suddenly some whim comes into my head, I can head off to my shelves and find the recording that is buzzing through my brain.

Joseph Haydn Discovered

For some 74½ years, Joseph Haydn and I have been merely on cool nodding terms. Bach and Handel, for me. Then Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. I knew of Haydn, and had a (very) few of his works. Never played a note of his music on my violin. I knew he wrote 104 symphonies and around 90 string quartets. In my youth, I had a recording of his “Oxford” symphony (on the second side on an LP that I bought because of the Mozart symphony on the first side).

A few weeks ago, having listened by chance to a couple of Haydn's string quartets during my string quartet phase, all that changed. Into my post box thunder recordings of Haydn's symphonies and string quartets; a biographical tome of Haydn is in the post somewhere. Haydn and I are in business. As with the music of Handel, I now welcome Haydn's lack of emotional complications, exquisite craftsmanship, admirable powers of invention using limited resources. I took to the string quartets recorded by the Takacs Quartet; discovering in my archives a recording of three Haydn quartets played by the Quatuor Mosaïques, I found myself really liking the lightness and transparency of the playing – doubly surprising, since it is an “original instrument” quartet, a concept that usually sees me fleeing the room as violins play long notes without any vibrato in sight (in the mistaken belief that this sounds “better”; which it does not). Anyway, the playing of the Quatuor Mosaïques appears to suit Haydn's quartets admirably, and a 10 CD box of Haydn quartets from the Mosaïques is on its way to me via the postal service. I love string quartet playing where I can hear each of the four instruments, as opposed to a general sound mush.

Again in my archives, I discovered a box of eight Haydn symphonies, recorded in the early 1960s by Otto Klemperer and the Philharmonia. Not to be outdone, I then ordered two boxes each of six Haydn symphonies recorded by Thomas Beecham and the RPO in the very late 1950s. The two sets of recordings complement each other perfectly: Beecham stylish and light of touch, Klemperer with the better orchestra and recording, with typical forward woodwind band and transparency of sound and structure. It's a good time for those collecting recordings, since all these older recordings are now available for less than the cost of a bottle of wine. Critics will wince at Klemperer and Beecham in Haydn – it's all a question of editions of musical scores that are too old, and orchestral sounds that are not old enough, it appears. But critics seem rarely to listen to music simply to enjoy it. I'll spend many happy months to come with Otto, Thomas, Takacs and Mosaïques. And Joseph Haydn. Maybe after another 74½ years I'll be extolling the virtues of Arnold Schönberg and Luigi Dallapiccola? Probably best not to take bets on it.

Music for convalescence

An eye operation has seen me confined to listening to music for a few days, rather than reading books or working at a computer. The time has passed swiftly with Bach (Mass in B minor), Haydn (string quartets) and Mozart (string quartets). Those who fly frequently in Europe will recognise that one can fly from the region of Eisenach / Leipzig to Vienna / Esterhazy, all within around 30 minutes. Pretty miraculous that so much great music came from so small an area of Planet Earth. My Bach was via Otto Klemperer (of course). Haydn courtesy of the Takacs Quartet; Mozart courtesy of the Quartetto Italiano. Music can be very soothing.

String Quartets

Four voices. Soprano, alto, tenor, bass. Two females (give or take a bit) and two males (give or take a bit). The principal ingredients of quartets through the ages, going back to consorts of viols, and the like. The string quartet emerged powerfully under Haydn, then Mozart, then was propelled to the fore by Beethoven and Schubert, then taken up by pretty well everyone (including, latterly, the fifteen string quartets of Shostakovich). The string quartet – particularly from Beethoven onwards – became a powerful medium for personal thought and expression, away from the sponsored and public glamour of major orchestral works, symphonies and operas. This personal nature is particularly marked in the later string quartets of Beethoven, and in the fifteen string quartets of Shostakovich. For me, one of the most sublime movements in all music is the opening fugue (adagio) of Beethoven's C sharp minor string quartet opus 131; here four voices conduct a civilised discussion amongst themselves, drawing us into their world.

The music of Felix Mendelssohn is normally expertly crafted and takes place in a cloudless sky. But when mourning the death of his sister Fanny, he turned to the string quartet and wrote the impassioned Op 80 string quartet in F minor. For too long I have passed over the string quartets of Mozart; a recent acquisition has been a four-CD set of the eleven last quartets of Mozart played by the Alban Berg Quartett in the 1970s. The recording puts one at the back of the concert hall, unfortunately, and I miss the aural participation one gets with recordings such as those of the St. Petersburg String Quartet playing the eternally fascinating string quartets of Shostakovich.

I never got on with the string quartets of Béla Bartok, but then Bartok and I rarely see eye to eye. And I have made valiant efforts with the string quartets of Benjamin Britten but, like so much of Britten's music, I find them works of great craftsmanship rather than great art. So my quartet listening is based on Beethoven, Schubert and Shostakovich, with Mozart now getting a look in, and Haydn still hiding somewhere in the undergrowth. Whatever: the string quartet is still one of the very greatest forms of music, and provides listening that is endlessly fascinating and enjoyable.

Arthur Grumiaux - 1961

A new CD from the admirable Orfeo company reminds us that Arthur Grumiaux was one of the greatest violinists of the twentieth century. A modest Belgian, who disliked travelling, he had the good fortune to become the “house violinist” of the Dutch Philips company for many years, and thus left many recordings. His noble playing never gives us problems with intonation, tempi, style or dynamics. On this (excellent quality) recording from the July 1961 Salzburg festival, he plays four standard repertoire works: Beethoven's violin and piano sonata Op 12 No.1, Brahms first sonata for violin and piano, Stravinsky's Divertimento (arranged by Dushkin) and Debussy's violin and piano sonata. All four works are first class in terms of playing, tempi and interpretation. What more could one ask? Grumiaux's duo partner in Salzburg that year was the Hungarian Istvan Hajdu; an excellent pianist. The playing on this CD should be compulsory listening in all music schools: this is how it should be done. Grumiaux live turns out to be even better than Grumiaux in the studio. And that is saying something.

The Khachatryans

I heard the teenage Sergey Khachatryan playing a violin concerto with Marin Alsop conducting at a concert some years ago and I was most impressed. Since then he has been a violinist in whom I have always taken a keen interest, so I seized upon a new CD featuring him called “My Armenia”. The CD consists of a number of 20^th century Armenian pieces for violin and piano, of which the only two I know are two bits from Aram Khachaturian (Chanson-Poème, and Sabre Dance). Sergey is his usual admirable and efficient self, but what impressed me above all was the playing of his sister, Lusine Khachatryan. Her playing reminds me of her near-ethnic neighbour, Katja Buniatishvili, with her ability to stroke the piano keys with velvet paws. Perhaps it is the piano sound of the Black Sea / Caspian Sea region. Lusine has lots of solo pieces on the CD – many of them Armenian dances – and they make interesting and enjoyable listening, particularly when played like this. As one can remember from Khachaturian's music, Armenian music has many strands of what used to be called “oriental”. Fortunately, Armenia – like Georgia – was spared from modern Islam, with its bleak record of major artistic works, music or musicians.

All in all, a very welcome CD of pretty well unknown music -- the composer Komitas Vardapet really impresses -- and I'll keep it by me in my “play again” section. It could even turn out that I listen more to the piano pieces, than to the duets. Quibbles? In view of the stature of both artists, the CD should have more accurately been called “Our Armenia”. And whoever told the Naïve graphic artist that no track numbers, and tiny light grey print on a white background were OK, should be shown to the door. Lusine Khachatryan really should be given a CD of her own to record; I'll buy it.

Christmas Music

Christmas is a special period, and demands special music. After a recent diet of Tchaikovsky, Bruckner, Rachmaninov and Brahms, Bach's Goldberg Variations cleanse the auditory palate. And no one better to play them than Igor Levit. An hour or so of supreme music and masterly playing.

Bach's Mass in B minor is a core work of the classical world, well within the top half dozen musical works of all time. It has now been going strong for some 280 years and shows no sign of fading. For my ears, none better to conduct it than Otto Klemperer. His approach may not currently be fashionable, but Klemperer loved the music, he had a superb sense of form and structure, and his ability to ensure that all strands in the music are heard, pays heavy dividends in Bach. To ears accustomed to contemporary Bach performances, some of the music may appear slow – particularly the opening Kyrie. But Klemperer gives the music stature, greatness, and a nobility that escapes the current modernists. “Wunderbar!” Herr Bach would surely have exclaimed, listening to this performance. Klemperer assembled a first-class line-up of soloists: Agnes Giebel (the breach with Walter Legge spared us Elisabeth Schwarzkopf), Janet Baker, Nicolai Gedda, Hermann Prey and Franz Crass. Who could ask for better? Not a castrato, male alto, counter-tenor or boy soprano in sight. Great music in the hands of great musicians will long survive all the ex-choristers and harpsichordists who currently clutter the contemporary scene for “period performance”.

And that was my Christmas music making. After a short pause over the end of the year while I go off to France to eat as many oysters as I can; I'll be back in 2016.

2015 Prizewinners

2015 with me saw many, many new CDs and many, many hours of listening. If I have to pick just two CDs from all the 2015 vintage, they would be:

Alina Ibragimova for her recording of the six solo violin sonatas of Eugène Ysaÿe. These sonatas have been much recorded, and choice is wide, competition fierce. Ibragimova has more than enough technique, but she also brings a wealth of fantasy and variety to these six sonatas; at times, it is almost as if she is improvising the works.

The second CD is Zlata Chochieva playing the complete Etudes of Chopin. Never a real Chopin fan, I was nevertheless completely seduced by Chochieva's playing here, even after I had compared her versions head-to-head with that of Alfred Cortot.

So two young Russian women get the 2015 prize. If I'd have allowed myself a third choice, it would have gone to Igor Levit; a real Russian trilogy!

Eight Prizewinning Violinists

If you reach the finals of a competition such as the Tchaikovsky Competition (Moscow) or Queen Elisabeth Competition (Brussels), you cannot play it safe; to impress the jury and win a medal, you need to go for broke. Thus the great attraction of the four CD booklet from the Queen Elisabeth competition, featuring eight different violin concertos played by eight different prize winners. There was obviously a policy of not duplicating either violinists, or concertos, which is sometimes a pity when X's marvellous performance of a given work is not included, since Y's equally marvellous performance of the same work, is. There is also the drawback of having orchestras and conductors who are not always of the top class, and who will not have had much time for rehearsal of a given work with a given soloist. No real matter; the spotlight is on the soloists. The stiff cover booklet has poorly reproduced black and white photos, misspells Philippe Hirschhorn's name throughout, and does not contain much real information apart from puffs for the competition. Again: no real matter.

Vadim Repin won the top prize in 1989 with the Tchaikovsky concerto. A magnificent performance, with a virtuoso finale. Nervous vibrato. Akiko Suwanai came second that year (Paganini 1^st violin concerto, not included here).

Nikolaj Znaider won the first prize in 1997 with a fluent, efficient Sibelius concerto with a good flowing adagio di molto.

Miriam Fried (Israel, 1st prize 1971) gives a fluent and fleet-of-foot recording of the Mendelssohn violin concerto, somewhat in the Heifetz mould. I think this is how it should be played; if milked for all it is worth, violinists soon reveal there is not too much milk to be had, whereas played exuberantly, as here, the concerto sounds fresh and ever-green. She is recorded a bit too close. Miriam Fried never went on to have much of a career, at least not in Europe.

Kristof Barati (1997) gives a thoroughly musical performance of the Beethoven violin concerto, ably supported by the Flanders Philharmonic under Marc Soustrot, presumably here on more familiar repertoire territory. This concerto – like those of Mozart – is perhaps not the best choice for a major competition, since it provides little scope for stunning an audience with technical display; the Beethoven concerto is difficult to play from a musical point of view, and here Barati is first class. Technically, of course, he is also first rate.

Like Miriam Fried, Yossif Ivanov (born in Belgium, despite his name) never went on to have much of a career after his success in Brussels in 2005. It is a pity that the desire not to duplicate concertos in this album means that the first Shostakovich concerto is given to Ivanov, as here, rather than presenting the coruscating 1963 performance by Alexei Michlin (first prize in that year).

I have blogged previously about the astonishing performance of Elgar's violin concerto by Gidon Kremer (1967). A pity about the contribution of the Belgian National Orchestra under René Defossez – the Elgar concerto, like that of Beethoven, needs a solid orchestral backing. It is a real shame that Kremer – never one of my favourite violinists – seems never to have recorded the Elgar again.

The same year saw the first prize go to Kremer's fellow Latvian, Philippe Hirschhorn, with an amazing performance of Paganini's first concerto. This is presumably why Akiko Suwanai's terrific performance in 1989 is not included in this 4-CD album. But it's good to have Hirschhorn in full flight, since he was a superb violinist.

The eighth concerto is the Bartok, given to Barnabas Kelemen (2001). Not one of my favourite concertos, but convincingly played here. This Queen Elisabeth set of four concertos is an essential acquisition for all lovers of fine violin playing.

Zlata Chochieva plays Rachmaninov's Etudes-Tableaux

The Russians may not produce many first class economists, but for well over a century Russian music schools have produced a seemingly never ending stream of first-class conductors, pianists and violinists. And the stream continues with young Russians such as Alina Ibragimova, Igor Levit, Julia Lezhneva …. and Zlata Chochieva. Today the post girl brought Zlata Chochieva playing the complete études-tableaux by Rachmaninov. Superb !

Ms Chochieva has an uncanny sense of light and shade, of dynamics, of rhythm and rubato, of phrasing and of musical structure. Previously I had greatly admired her recording of Chopin's études. Now it is Rachmaninov's turn; I play her CD of Chopin often, and know the new CD will be another for my frequent listening rack. In every photo of the photogenic Ms Chochieva, she looks completely fed up. Maybe she is emulating Stravinsky's characterisation of Rachmaninov as “a six foot, six inch tall scowl”. If she ever plays Mozart, maybe she will smile. Anyway; anything she records, I shall buy.

Kristof Barati, and Reto Kuppel

I listened with great pleasure to a new CD from the immensely talented Kristof Barati on which he plays 13 well-known pieces for violin and piano by Sarasate, Wieniawski, Tchaikovsky, et al. In none of the pieces does he put a foot wrong, technically or musically. I might wonder a little at his rhythms in Sarasate's Romanza Andaluza, but that's about it.

My only reservations over the 70 minutes of excellent music, excellent violin playing, and excellent recording are personal: all the pieces Barati plays here are too well known (to me). I have 40 recordings of Wieniawski's Scherzo and Tarantella, and 45 of Sarasate's Romanza Andaluza ! I would never have purchased such a recording of popular gems had it not been Barati playing them.

My second reservation concerns the two pieces on this CD by Heinrich Ernst. Ernst wrote quite a bit of attractive music for his instrument, the violin. The two usual pieces trotted out by Barati are not among Ernst's best compositions: the “Last Rose of Summer” variations, and the “Erlkönig” caprice. Both these works have always seemed to me to be circus pieces, where one waits to hear when – and if – the violinist fails the test. Needless to say, Barati does not, but the events are technical tours de force rather than musical ones. Extended passages in harmonics, and double-stopped harmonics, are hell on earth to play for a violinist. But the interest is purely the technical challenge, not a musical one. I always find the last few minutes of the Last Rose faintly embarrassing and, after a first hearing, always press the “next track” button.

Barati's CD is a big contrast to 74 minutes of solo violin pieces by Henri Vieuxtemps, played by Reto Kuppel. If ever the violin has a patron saint, it will be St. Naxos who, year after year and decade after decade, gives us relatively unknown master violinists playing – often – relatively unknown music. I did not know any of the 19 pieces on this new CD; more's the pity. There are some real gems amongst them (and the étude de concert Op 16 No.1 deserves to become as hackneyed as Wieniawski's Légende as featured by Barati). Reto Kuppel (a new name to me) deserves honours for his playing here. Henri Vieuxtemps was a highly talented composer, as well as a violinist, and all his music is well worth listening to, these solo pieces for the music as well as for the (considerable) technical challenges. Unlike Ernst and Paganini, however, Vieuxtemps' technical challenges are musical, as well as purely technical. Bravo Herr Kuppel, Monsieur Vieuxtemps, and Naxos.

Beatrice Rana, and Yuja Wang (again)

I investigated Beatrice Rana, a new Italian piano “star” (on a CD with Antonio Pappano and the Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome). She is presented by the Warner company as a keyboard tiger, with the orchestra well in the background. The background orchestra does not matter too much in Prokofiev's second piano concerto, which must rival Chopin's piano concertos as one of the least rewarding for an orchestral player. Listening to the Prokofiev second piano concerto, I realised I have never really taken to Prokofiev's music; slick, clever, fashionable but, a bit like Stravinsky, lacking that Russian “soul” one finds in Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov or Shostakovich.

Like her ancient pianistic ancestor, Vladimir Horowitz, Ms Rana can certainly play the piano and, with the up-front Warner recording, we hear every demi-semiquaver she plays. The orchestra is less fortunate and comes over, in so far as the recording engineers are concerned, as a necessary back-up group. There are four photos of the photogenic Ms Rana, and we are in the world of showbiz rather than serious music making. I followed Ms Rana's CD with Yuja Wang playing the Ravel piano concertos with the Zürich Tonhalle orchestra conducted by Lionel Bringuier. Ms Wang is also a star (at the moment, even bigger in the galaxy than Ms Rana) but, with Yuja, we are back in the land of music making rather than circus tricks. I am not a great fan of Ravel, nor of his piano concertos. However, I can recognise great performances when I hear them, and the constant dialogue between Yuja Wang and the Swiss orchestra is a welcome antidote to the “pianist plus one” recording by Beatrice Rana. It's not often that the sweeping Tchaikovskian melodies in his first piano concerto go for practically nothing; here they are just an interlude before Ms Rana thunders in again. The Italian recording engineers should be shown the door. And Ms Rana, incredible pianist though she may be, does not go on my “buy” list.

The CD of Yuja Wang playing the two Ravel piano concertos is in a demonstration class of how piano and orchestra should play together in a piano concerto, and how they should be balanced (DG). Yuja's opening of the second movement of the Ravel G major concerto will melt any heart. I am afraid, however, that Beatrice Rana's CD of Prokofiev's second piano, coupled with Tchaikovsky's first, is a demonstration of how not to do it. Antonio Pappano will probably put this CD at the bottom of his bottom draw. I just hope that Warner does not follow this with a duo recording featuring Ms Rana and Andrea Bocelli. Or a duo recording with Ms Rana and Lang Lang.

Two French Sopranos: Sabine Devieilhe, and Véronique Gens

The French seem to be doing well with top class musicians, at the moment. Not reflected too often in French orchestras, but singers, violinists, cellists, pianists …. Two CDs from France turned up this week to add to my collection: Sabine Devieilhe (soprano) sings Mozart. Véronique Gens (soprano) sings an excellent collection of 24 songs by Reynaldo Hahn, Henri Duparc and Ernest Chausson.

Véronique Gens has a beautiful voice of real character, and she enunciates clearly. Whatever she is singing about – joy, love, sorrow – she always sounds as though she means it. She is expertly accompanied by the ever-talented Susan Manoff, a pianist who always sounds at home in French mélodies. 66 minutes with Gens and Manoff go very quickly. I was particularly happy to meet the songs of Reynaldo Hahn featured here; they are songs I had not come across before.

On to the more controversial CD of Sabine Devieilhe (accompanied very admirably by an instrumental group Pygmalion, directed by Raphaël Pichon; the group also plays some Mozart bits and pieces on the CD). Hers is a fresh, young, agile voice of very considerable dexterity and technical skill. Her voice, however, lacks the sheer character of the soprano voice of Véronique Gens. Character is important. Ms Devieilhe's CD is a bit of a hotch-potch of Mozart bits and pieces. The producers try to give it a “theme” or a “concept” – music written for the various three Weber sisters, one of whom, Constanze, Mozart married – but it does not really work. We have various arias for soprano. We have various pieces for orchestra. We have an eleven minute chunk of the C minor Mass (Et incarnatus est). We have the Queen of the Night aria (expertly sung). The whole 72 minutes of the CD is really a vehicle for Ms Devieilhe but, unlike Véronique Gens or Julia Lezhneva – to mention only two – Sabine does not yet have the ability to hold our interest always in what she is singing. We gasp, we marvel; but we are not moved. A friend of mine listening to Julia Lezhneva singing Handel was at a loss for words to describe the experience. Sabine Devieilhe is not in the same class. We clap and say “brilliantly executed”. Ms Gens goes into my “keep nearby” rack, as does Ms Lezhneva; both have recitals of music of real value. I am less sure about the bits and pieces of Mozart arias from Ms Devieilhe, which rarely seem to me to show Mozart at his best. She will not go into the “keep nearby” rack, and that is a bit unfair. It's just that, sitting in a prison cell, if I heard Maria Callas, or Julia Lezhneva, or Sandrine Piau, or Véronique Gens singing, I would recognise them. But if it were Sabine Devieilhe, I would reflect: “What a lovely voice, and what great singing. I wonder who it is?” Hopefully, in the near future she will come up with 60 minutes of music that make more musical sense than “The Weber Sisters”. Her Pygmalion friends are excellent in Mozart; the forward woodwind would have pleased Mozart (and Otto Klemperer).

Ginette Neveu: Beethoven Violin Concerto

In 1935, the sixteen year old Ginette Neveu won the Wieniawski competition, beating all comers including David Oistrakh, who finished second. She was a wonderful violinist with an inner fire and a stupendous technique. Her career took off; then came the period 1939-45 when, for most of the time, she was confined to cycling round Paris during the German occupation. During the second half of 1945 her career re-started until she died in an air crash 28^th October 1949. What a loss!

A friend and I were somewhat surprised when Gidon Kremer, after a personal analysis of a whole pile of recordings of the Beethoven violin concerto (the analysis lasted 44 pages) declared that, for him, the greatest of all the recordings was by … Ginette Neveu, recorded off-air in September 1949 with Hans Rosbaud conducting a somewhat second class German south-west radio orchestra. My friend and I rushed to unearth our copies of the recording; mine had been untouched for several decades and, with 86 different recordings of this concerto on my shelf, it might well have remained unheard for a few more decades.

The orchestral playing is a bit rustic at times, not too surprising in the Germany of 1949. However, in a perverse way this serves to emphasise the serenity of Ginette Neveu's playing, especially in the first two movements. Neveu was renowned as an often fiery player (witness her famous Ravel Tzigane, and her predilection for the Brahms violin concerto). The Beethoven concerto is not easy to bring off in performance, since the violin rarely challenges the orchestra or indulges in pyrotechnics. To my mind, Neveu's serenity (with character) and flowing tempi achieve a really great performance of this fragile concerto. In the cadenzas we glimpse the fiery Neveu from time to time (but, surely, that is what cadenzas are for). Rosbaud's part is strong and firm, pace the orchestra. This performance is admitted to my pantheon of great recordings of Beethoven's violin concerto. Fortunately, Ginette Neveu was recorded quite often during the period 1945-49, with a batch of recordings of shorter pieces during 1938-39.

A Great Time for Young Artists

The first concert I attended was in the very early 1950s at St. Wilfrid's church at a place near where I grew up, called Rose Green. The evening was devoted to Bach's Mass in B minor. The audience (to my 12 or 13 year old eyes) consisted entirely of very old people, who looked at me gratefully and admiringly as a sign that "youth" liked classical music and that there was hope for the future.

In my year at secondary school, there were around 120 boys, streamed into four classes. I remember, at most only two or three who showed any interest in "classical" music. When I attended music concerts in the evening in the school hall (I remember the Allegri String Quartet) there were few, if any, pupils of the school present. The audiences always consisted of "old" people.

So when I read today (particularly in the press of Britain and America) that young people do not take to "classical" music, and that the future of such music is in doubt, I just shake my head in exasperation. Have they not looked at the age of so many players in so many orchestras? In so many string quartets and vocal groups? At so many soloists? My eyes are now much older, and most practising musicians today seem to me to be "young". When I compiled my list (below) of outstanding musicians who impressed me in 2015, I was surprised to find that all of them were "young" -- (to me, under 30 years old is young). I limited my list to five candidates, on the grounds that just one or two is unfair; 12 or 15 just becomes ridiculous. Of my five choices for 2015, one is Asiatic, four are Russian, four out of the five are women. So much for the rest of us. More importantly, the five musicians are all young. That was quite a surprise, to me.

It goes without saying that my list below is subjective, and represents what I, a veteran listener to musicians, found most impressive in 2015. No offence to "old" musicians, but it is true that I was most impressed this year by performances from "youth". So who are these impressive young people, (in alphabetical order)?

Zlata Chochieva for her Chopin études
Alina Ibragimova for Ysaÿe's six solo sonatas

Igor Levin for Bach and Beethoven

Julia Lezhneva for Handel arias
Yuja Wang for her Ravel concertos.

The incredible Tianwa Yang did not make this year's top five list, since her Ysaÿe solo sonatas came into my hands last year, not this, and this year's release by her of Castelnuovo-Tedesco's Hollywoodiana concertos was a dead duck as far as I was concerned (because of the music, not because of the valiant Miss Yang).

A Tasty Dish

For the record: my culinary creation of a couple of days ago was a real success (though I may have overdosed on the chilli-peppers somewhat). For the record, and for future generations, I give the essential ingredients below.

Normandy chicken meat (shredded). Green, yellow and red bell peppers. Flat field mushrooms. Cayenne pepper. Chilli-peppers. Salt, black pepper, onions, herbes de Provence, bay leaves, olive oil. Cooked, then left to marinade for 24 hours.

The dish goes well with Ravel's spicy piano concerto, played incredibly by the superb Yuja Wang. Even the Zürich orchestra sounds well spiced up with chilli, inspired no doubt by Ms Wang's pianism. To my mind, Yuja beats all-comers, including Michelangeli and Martha Argerich. Some achievement. The girl will go far.

Evgeny Mravinsky and the Leningrad Philharmonic in Tchaikovsky

There is no cheddar cheese the equal of a good, aged, unpasteurised farmhouse cheddar from Somerset. And there are no performances of Tchaikovsky's last three symphonies equal to those recorded in 1960 by the Leningrad Philharmonic conducted by Evgeny Mravinsky. I took them down off my shelf recently and was once again bowled over by the sheer Russian-ness of these recordings, complete with the old Russian style woodwind and brass. If you are an “authenticity” fanatic, then the sound of the Leningrad orchestra in 1960 is just up your street, since it almost certainly equates to what Tchaikovsky would have heard back in the 1880s. It certainly suits me, and I mourn for the days when Russian orchestras sounded Russian, and French orchestras sounded French. Now, all orchestras have been more or less homogenised, and it is difficult to tell one nationality from another.

I've never much taken to Tchaikovsky's fourth symphony, but I like the fifth very much, and really love the Pathétique. It certainly sounds as if the Leningraders, like all good Russians, really love this music, and they play it from the heart. A top orchestra playing music it knows and loves under a conductor who is supreme in that music, has no equal. There are several dozen real “Recordings of the Century” around; and this is one of them. Over 55 years later, it still sounds superb, a tribute to the DGG engineers of that period, and to the old Leningrad Philharmonic.

Wolfgang Schneiderhan

As a sort-of violinist, since the age of twelve, I've always loved the violin. The first violinist to leave his mark on me was Yehudi Menuhin (probably inevitably in the England of the 1950s). Now, over sixty years later, my preferred listening gravitates increasingly to a handful of violinists of the past, including Wolfgang Schneiderhan, Adolf Busch, and Jozef Suk. These three, to coin a phrase from Tully Potter's biography of Adolf Busch, were all “honest musicians”. They probably never appeared on television; they probably never died particularly rich. But, over sixty years on, it's still a joy to listen to their “old-world” classical style of playing.

This thought was sparked by a (rare) recital disc from the admirable Australian Eloquence label featuring Wolfgang Schneiderhan playing 17 pieces of salon or encore music. All 17 pieces feature different styles of bowing, fingering and attack from Schneiderhan. The six Romanian Folk Dances by Bartok could almost be being played by six different violinists, when one listens to this CD. Schneiderhan is not generally thought of as a player of short pieces, but this recital disc from 1957 makes one regret he did not record much more of such music. Frankly, 17 short pieces of music for violin and piano can end up being somewhat monotonous for the listener. But not when Wolfgang Schneiderhan is playing! A real treat to sit back and listen to the CD, and many thanks to Eloquence. More !