Music and Politics

During my lifetime, I have listened to many, many conductors, violinists, singers and pianists. I have always judged them, I hope, on their prowess as conductors, violinists, singers, or pianists. In my early teens, in my school library during the 1950s, I read a book on music by someone called “Bacharach”. Even at an early age I was scandalised that he denigrated Wilhelm Furtwängler -- because he had stayed and worked in Nazi Germany -- and eulogised Arturo Toscanini who had left Italy and found lucrative employment in America (from which he never returned except for visits, despite the fall of fascist Italy in 1944). History has decided the respective merits of Furtwängler and Toscanini. What did Mr Bacharach's evaluation have to do with the respective conducting merits of the German and the Italian?

Music is an art form -- along with painting and ballet -- that transcends frontiers of language, nationality, culture, politics, race and religion. I therefore still -- after over 60 years -- become irate when composers, musicians or artists are pilloried because of their race, religion, politics, or nationality. It still goes on, 60 years later viz the “sage” Norman Lebrecht lambasting the highly talented Russian conductor Valery Gergiev as “Putin's henchman”. Herr Lebrecht may not like Gergiev's conducting (but, usually, I do). But what do Gergiev's politics have to do with his conducting of Tchaikovsky's Pathétique?

César Franck, and Arabella Steinbacher

César Franck's Sonata in A major for violin was written in 1886 as a birthday present for Eugène Ysaÿe. It is a very popular work with violinists and audiences, and genial in nature (as befits a birthday present). Although written during the period when Wagner was all the rage in the musical world, the sonata was written by a Franco-Belgian for a Franco-Belgian, and given its première in Paris in 1886. This should provide a clue as to its character and the way it should be played; the Franco-Belgian school was renowned for elegance rather than brutal power.

I have on my shelves 59 different recordings of the work, starting from 1923 where Cortot and Thibaud give probably the best recording ever of the work, albeit in pre-electric sound. The pair re-recorded the work in 1929; inevitably in far better sound, though the performance lacks a little of the freshness of the original version. Subsequently the sonata became a favourite of Jascha Heifetz, and of Leonid Kogan; the most recent recording I possess is an excellent one by Alina Ibragimova, with Cédric Tiberghien.

In my younger years, I used to play the sonata on both violin, and viola – the work is not technically difficult, for the violinist. Pretty well every violinist one can think of has recorded it over the years, with the many successful performances coming from violinists from the Franco-Belgian school; it does not take too well to the Russian tank style of violin playing. Yesterday I picked from my shelves a 2012 recording by Arabella Steinbacher, with Robert Kulek. Ms Steinbacher is an elegant player, with a lovely sound and an exemplary technique. She does not often feature in any list of the top 10 violinists around today but, as I have remarked frequently, fame is no guarantee of quality, and vice versa. Fame is often more a tribute to a pushy promotion manager. Arabella records for Pentatone and for Orfeo and her recordings are usually a sure choice if you are looking for something beautifully played and recorded. I basked in her playing of the Franck sonata.

Vilde Frang, Ning Feng, and Recording Engineers

I listened off-air to two violin concertos played by the younger generation of violinists: Ning Feng played the Sibelius (with the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Simone Young) and Vilde Frang played the Elgar, with the San Francisco symphony orchestra conducted by Krzysztof Urbanski. Both violinists gave totally admirable performances, with Frang getting a special mention for maintaining the tempos and not lingering in what is admittedly a somewhat over-long concerto (50 minutes). These performances by both young violinists are up there with the best.

What was not up with the best were the performances by the respective British and American recording engineers, particularly sad in the case of the BBC that used to have a great deal of expertise in this area. This new generation of Anglo-American engineers has been brought up on the terminology of popular or entertainment music, where the “star” is spotlit, whilst the “backing group” is relegated to the background. Adjust your volume to listen comfortably to Feng or Frang, and the orchestras recede to Studio B somewhere nearby. Adjust your volume to listen to the orchestras, and the violinists will knock you out of your socks. I find increasingly that to get a realistic balance, one needs to look to recording engineers in Germany, Holland or Scandiavia, where the tradition of Tonmeister appears to live on, and where recording engineers have actually experienced going to symphony concerts and listening to concertos where the soloist emerges from the orchestral sound, rather than dominates it. If anything, the BBC engineers here are worse, since they continually tweak the sound and balance during the performance, so occasionally you get a giant clarinet and a normal violin, then an enormous violin and a distant orchestral string section.

By coincidence, I followed this up with listening to the ever-talented Arabella Steinbacher playing Shostakovich's second violin concerto, where Shostakovich, Steinbacher, Nelsons (the conductor) and Orfeo (the Munich-based recording company) all illustrate just how to record a solo violin well integrated with the sound of a symphony orchestra. There: it can be done.

In Praise of Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich

Growing up during the 1940s and 50s in a musical family, music has always been a special love for me. Right from the start, however, I was never greatly enamoured of “showbiz” music: music that was written to appeal to the People, the Grand Duke, the Emperor, the People's Committee for Correct Music, or whatever. Over the decades my interest in symphonies and operas has waned, whilst my love of chamber music has grown. I love many piano sonatas, many sonatas for violin and piano, many trios. And many string quartets.

String quartets are a special area of affection. Into this almost-ideal medium, many composers have poured out their real feelings for music, away from “showbiz” aspects. Thus I really enjoy, more and more, the string quartets of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert ... and Dmitri Shostakovich.

Shostakovich did not inhabit an ideal environment for a composer of classical music. His chamber music -- and above all his fifteen string quartets -- pours out the depressive-manic reflection of his character, his life, and his environment. Jolly themes become more and more jolly, until they morph into the fixed grimace of a clown. Happy Dmitri plunges from exuberance to deepest gloom within a few bars. It is all thoroughly Russian, and I have a special place in my heart and my emotions for the music of Shostakovich. For me, Russian music is at its most “authentic” (to use a current fashion-phrase) when played by Russians, so I am greatly enjoying Shostakovich's 4^th, 6^th and 8^th string quartets played by the St Petersburg String Quartet, and recorded in St Petersburg in 1999. This is music that connects directly with me, in a way that the string quartets of contemporary composers such as Benjamin Britten or Béla Bartok never can, however admirable they may be on paper.

Shostakovich wrote 15 string quartets (and 15 symphonies). I cannot claim to know the quartets and symphonies intimately, since I came to them relatively late in life. However, like the two violin concertos (that I do know well) and the sonatas for, respectively, violin, viola and cello, I sense that Shostakovich 1-10 is somehow more engaged and passionate, than Shostakovich 11-15. Late Shostakovich is even bleaker than early Shostakovich. The music is often sotto voce, with the occasional anguished howl of rage, or despair. Many of the works end pianissimo, eschewing the traditional grand ending leading to thunderous applause. The long held, pianissimo ending of the third quartet (opus 73, in F major) seems to go on for hours before finally dying. I love it, I am a fully paid-up member of the Shostakovich fan club.

The Music World circa 2019

In the early 1950s, my family in the south of England was visited by two Aunts from The North (my father had seven sisters, and five brothers). The aunts were happy to hear that their young nephew liked music, as did they. They asked me to play something I liked, and I put on my current amour -- Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau singing Schubert songs. They listened intently and then, at the end, one of them said: “Eh, he sings very well ... for a foreigner”.

On my return from a couple of weeks in Vietnam a few days ago, I listened to Tianwa Yang playing Brahms. On a whim, I followed this up with Ning Feng playing Bach. And, this evening, it was Xiayin Wang playing Rachmaninov. I wonder what my Aunts from The North would have made of all of that. Before listening to Xiayin Wang, I consumed with pleasure my master dish: a Thai soup Tom Yum, with assorted fish. In 2019, we live in a different world (even in Brexit Britain).

Vive Tianwa Yang

150 years ago, probably no one would have heard, or heard of, a violinist such as Tianwa Yang. In those days, violinists, singers and pianists found fame (if any) only in their local areas. 100 years ago, not much would have changed, even after the advent of radio broadcasting and recording; slots were limited to established musicians, and recording companies were few in number given the overheads in recording, promoting, manufacturing and distribution.

Move on the the present day, however, and we welcome a veritable cornucopia of superb young violinists, singers, cellists and pianists, with specialist recording companies vying with YouTube and network streaming. For violinists, Naxos has promoted a realm of talent for many of the past decades, including Ms Yang whose current recording of the Brahms violin concerto is the latest addition to her long list of Naxos recordings. I liked this performance a lot. Her musicality shines throughout the work, even in the (Joachim) cadenza. Ms Yang is no barnstormer of a violinist; even in her early recording of the 24 Paganini Capricci at the age of 13, she revealed herself to be a thoughtful and musical player, less interested in strutting the stage than in getting to the heart of the music. I have 91 recordings of Brahms' Op 77, from 1927 (Kreisler) to 2017 (Yang). Yang is recognisably feminine in her performance, and I like it.

Fame is mainly based on age, and on establishing a recognised “brand”. This brand recognition is tough on new entrants who may well be infinitely superior to established brands. To my mind, Tianwa Yang plays the Brahms concerto much better than “brands” such as Pinchas Zukerman, Isaac Stern, Vadim Gluzman ... or a host of others amongst my 91 other candidates for a place on the podium. And the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under Antoni Wit plays the orchestral parts like ... a German orchestra playing Johannes Brahms. Tianwa Yang takes a place on the podium for recordings of the Brahms violin concerto. Also on the new CD is a performance of Brahms' double concerto for violin and cello, where the young Gabriel Schwabe complements the young Tianwa Yang affectionately. A three-star addition to my bulging collection of really worthwhile recordings.

Renaud Capuçon and David Fray play Bach

In my younger years, I used to play the six Bach sonatas for violin and keyboard. They are fine works, with some highly interesting movements, and illustrate that, even early on in 1717, Bach was head and shoulders above his Italian contemporaries. I have acquired a new CD on which Renaud Capuçon and David Fray tackle four of these sonatas, where both violin and keyboard have equal prominence.

The CD is fine. David Fray plays the keyboard part on a piano, thank heavens, rather than on a jangling harpsichord that would have been the best Bach could come up with back in 1717. I am not a lover of the sound of harpsichords: “two skeletons copulating on a tin roof” as Thomas Beecham termed it many years ago. Renaud Capuçon, an expert chamber music player, projects the violin part superbly. He does not dabble in the current fad for “pseuo-baroque” playing, but neither does he try to make Bach's violin writing sound like César Franck. Vibrato is used, but judiciously. A CD to keep at hand and to enjoy Bach in seventeen movements. On re-listenings, I admire the CD more and more: for Bach's music, for Capuçon's violin playing, and for Fray's pianism. There is a lightness of touch and a commendable willingness to dance to Bach's dance rhythms that I find wholly admirable. This, I would venture to suggest, is how these works should be played in our current world.

From the Archives: Charles Gounod, and Artur Schnabel

The string quartets of Charles Gounod are pretty un-famous. I discovered three of them in my dusty archives, played by the Danel Quartet; I have no idea where the CD came from. This is attractive, easy-listening music, with no Sturm und Drang. Some of the movements are extremely charming – the allegretto of the A major quartet, for example.

Also from my archives, my mind jogged by a friend's reference to Artur Schnabel, I exhumed my collection of Schnabel recordings, including an 8-CD box of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, Schnabel's principal composers. I re-discovered one of my favourite pianists; much like Clara Haskil, or Maria Pires, Schnabel puts the music first and eschews any showing off. His Bach playing is sheer delight, with good tempi and excellent part playing. Some in the past cast doubts on his virtuosity, but listening to Schnabel, recorded mainly in the 1930s, there are no signs of weakness. And that wonderful sense of subtle rubato! When all the flashier players have come and gone, Schnabel goes on for ever. There was more musicality in Schnabel than in ten Vladimir Horowitzs.

Petrenko's Magnificent Enigma

Edward Elgar's Enigma Variations is one of very few English works post-17^th century to have achieved international acceptance. It's a lovely piece of music, fresh, varied, and affectionate. I have eleven different recordings, including excellent ones by Barbirolli and Monteux. However, pride of place must go to a new recording where Vasily Petrenko conducts a Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra that sounds right at the top of its game in this music that must be so familiar to most of the players. Petrenko's pacing is superb, and he manages to persuade the Liverpool strings to play with a depth and glow that is almost Russian. I particularly admired the balance of the orchestral parts, where everything can be heard, a tribute to both the conductor and to the balance engineers. The Onyx recording is truly excellent. Another great recording to add to Petrenko's Elgar collection. The young Russian would seem to have a real affinity with the music of Sir Edward. How about the Elgar violin concerto with fellow-Russian Alina Ibragimova as soloist?

Georges Bizet: Symphony

Georges Bizet had little success with his music in his lifetime. Even his “hit” opera, Carmen -- claimed to be the most played opera in the world -- had to wait until after his death in 1875 at the age of 36 to achieve any vestige of success. In 1935, his Symphony in C, written at the age of 17, was exhumed and given its first performance after 80 years (by Felix Weingartner). It is a lovely work, fresh, melodic and expertly written for an orchestra. One can lament that the musical world in France, and Paris, in mid-19^th century was so unfriendly to French composers and that Bizet more-or-less abandoned writing for orchestras, dictated by the current fashion.

I listened to it -- twice -- today, recorded in 1959 with Thomas Beecham conducting the ORTF orchestra in Paris. Lovely music, beautifully conducted, expertly played. 17-year olds today do not write such enchanting and enjoyable half-hour musical works. You can probably hunt the world's concert halls for live performances of Bizet's Symphony in C, but you will not find many (or any).

In Praise of Vaclav Snitil (Who?)

After a recent bout of “baroque” violinists with their thin, whining tone, it was a relief to turn to the violin playing of Vaclav Snitil (1928-2015), a Czech violinist who was a pupil of Jaroslav Kocian. By some (happy) accident of fate, and some good friends, I have many recordings by Snitil, including the complete violin and piano works of Mozart. Snitil was a devotee of chamber music playing and appears to have concentrated his repertoire on the Austro-Hungarian empire, and the Czech-Slovak lands. Who else would have recorded a complete 65 minute CD of the violin and piano music of Jan Kubelik and Jaroslav Kocian, except Snitil and his Guarneri del Gesù violin? Or a CD of violin and piano music by Laub, Ondricek, Sevcik, Kubelik, Kocian, and Prihoda? Whatever, it makes a pleasant change from yet another rendition of de Falla's Danse Espagnole. As I remarked recently when commenting on Sueye Park's recital disk; you need to play short salon pieces con amore, as did many of the old school of violinists. Which is probably why modern violinists steer clear of them in favour of yet another traversal of Beethoven's Spring sonata, or Ravel's sonata. Yawn.

Scan a list of “famous” violinists over the past 50 years and you probably will not find Snitil. Given his dates, he will have spent all his professional life behind the Iron Curtain, and thus be pretty invisible to the world outside. Moreover, violinists (especially) are “famous” because of efficient PR agencies, pushy impresarios, and astute managers. American lists and websites, in particular, seem to feature only violinists known to American television audiences or to extensive American media coverage; lots of Perlmans, Zukermans and Sterns, but few Snitils, Schneiderhans, Suks or Grumiauxs. For the Americans, current violinists seem  to concentrate on Hilary Hahn, or Joshua Bell; not Tianwa Yang, Renaud Capuçon, or Vilde Frang.

From his photos, Snitil looks like a prosperous Czech farmer wearing his Sunday suit; the likes of Warner Music or DG would not touch him with a barge pole. Skinny young females, and ill-shaven young males, are all the rage when it comes to modern violinists, even if they cannot really communicate Jaroslav Kocian's charming pieces. It is said that the test of a great chef, is his ability to present a perfect boiled egg and a salad. In the same way, I submit that the test of a great violinist is his or her ability to play four salon pieces entrancingly. Vaclav Snitil passes the test. I doubt whether many “famous” modern violinists such as xx or yy could do the same.

Dixit Dominus. With Haïm, Minkowski, and Eliot-Gardiner

Handel was in Rome in 1707, and there the 22 year old Saxon wrote Dixit Dominus, a setting of Psalm 109 for five-part chorus, five soloists and strings. It is an astonishingly virtuoso work, as the young Handel exalts in his incredible powers. I listened to it in a 1977 recording by the young John Eliot-Gardiner, then went on to the same work led by Emmanuelle Haïm (2006) and finally Marc Minkowski (1998), the latter two being mainly French participants. The two French-based teams come in at a whisker over 30 minutes. The Englishman comes in at 35 minutes. Eliot-Gardiner's Monteverdi Choir sounds a bit cumbersome, as recorded here, and his soloists are nothing outstanding, featuring no less than two counter-tenors, one of whom sounds suspiciously like a boy soprano. Nothing against boy sopranos, just so long as I do not need to hear them sing.

Haïm is the most flamboyant and Italianate of the three (quite rightly so, in my view, given the work's provenance). Her choir and soloists are excellent and her team includes the superb Natalie Dessay and Philippe Jaroussky. Haïm and Handel always seem to get on well together, and with me. If I have a criticism, it is that Haïm appears to concentrate her energies on the soloists and choir, and leaves the orchestra to its own devices, which is a great pity since Handel's writing for the string orchestra is imaginative and attractive.

Marc Minkowski strikes the right balance between orchestra, soloists and choir, and his is probably the recording I am most likely to take to a desert island with me. His soloists are not quite equal to Haïm's team, but the two sopranos, Annick Massis and Magdalena Kozena are good, and the alto, Sara Fugoni, is a welcome relief from Eliot-Gardiner's counter-tenors. Three Dixit Dominus listenings within 18 hours has been surprisingly invigorating and enjoyable. There is nothing the equal of Handel's music for late-night listening.

Véronique Gens sings Chausson

Written at the very end of the nineteenth century, just before his premature death at the age of 44 in a bicycle accident, Ernest Chausson's Poème de l'Amour et de la Mer has always had a special place in my affections. It has excellent previous recordings from the likes of Janet Baker and Susan Graham, but today I wallowed in its lush self-pity with a new recording where it is sung by Véronique Gens, one of my favourite singers, and a soprano with exemplary diction where you can hear every word she is singing. It's a lovely performance and recording, with the Lille Orchestra under its new conductor Alexandre Bloch. Three stars.

The CD continues with Chausson's Symphony, another lush, late-Romantic work that never seems to have made it into the standard repertoire. Well worth hearing however, and well recorded. As far as I can judge, the Lille performance under Bloch is excellent.

Isabelle Faust disappoints in Bach

I first heard Bach's (reconstructed) concerto for oboe and violin BWV 1060 on a 7 inch 33 rpm disc in the 1950s (Karl Ristenpart). Even to my teenage ears, it did not sound too successful, since the piercing oboe dominates all and the violin might just as well be played by 12-year old John Smith (or 15-year old Harry Collier). Fast forward to 2019, and it does not sound any better even with Isabelle Faust playing the violin part. The main difference is: speed. In the 1950s, had I heard this, my immediate reaction would have been to check whether I was playing the 33 rpm disc at 45 rpm. Why are Ms Faust and her companions in such a hurry? Don't they wish to revel in Bach's music? Or did the financial controller warn them to ensure the session lasted no more than 18 minutes in case they ran into punishing overtime payments? Whatever; like almost everything on this two-CD set featuring Isabelle Faust and the Akademie für Alte Musik, Berlin: it's all too bloody fast!

I sort of give up with Bach's concertos featuring solo violin. The old classics featured a full symphony orchestra, which was demonstrably wrong and anachronistic. The modern “with-it” recordings feature anodyne violin playing with a demonstrable lack of affection. Even Alina Ibragimova was let down by a bizarre band accompaniment directed by Jonathan Cohen, with a plucking lute dominating the proceedings in the slow movements, ensuring the recording went on to a far back shelf in my collection and affection. I am not much interested in historical reconstructions as to what the music may have sounded like in 1720, or whenever. I want the music played by someone who loves it, who cherishes it, and who plays with a small group of aficionados who also love the music. Exceptional violin technique is not necessary; there are no harmonics, passages in harmonics, passages of tricky double-stopping, or passages of ricochet bowing. Well over 90,000 modern violinists could probably play the music to the same standard as Ms Faust, which is frustrating for top-notch violin soloists.

Isabelle Faust is a superb violinist who, in the past, did some really good things; I remember, in particular, the Beethoven violin concerto, plus violin & piano sonatas, and some excellent Schubert and Bartok. But in recent years she seems to have gone down the less challenging path of ye olde violine playing. One cannot blame her, since churning out pseudo 1720 violin playing is a lot less challenging than tackling the Brahms or Sibelius violin concertos. The problem is: not many people can play the Brahms or Sibelius violin concertos successfully, whereas almost every violinist and his or her dog can play the Bach concerti. The secret lies in the art of playing the violin, and having excellent colleagues to back you up. Lovers of ye olde violine playing remind me of lovers of old, 1950s and 60s cars that, compared with modern cars, are hopelessly unreliable, inefficient, and expensive to run and maintain.

I have never understood the rationale for playing a violin senza vibrato. I'm sorry, but a violin played with subtle and varied vibrato sounds so much more attractive than a violin played without vibrato, especially in the slow movements where Ms Faust's vibrato-less violin sounds as if it is whining. I know they didn't do vibrato in 1720 (it is claimed). But things have moved on a little since 1720 in terms of violin (and keyboard) playing. There is some nice music on these two CDs, with a mixture of concertos, sinfonias and trio sonatas. The sound overall is a bit “spiky”, though I am not sure whether this is down to the recording, or to the violin playing that lacks warmth. I seem to have 20-30 recordings of each of the main Bach violin concertos — the A minor, E major, and D minor double. Not one finds much favour with me; I can't take symphony orchestras playing the band part of these concertos. Nor can I take the non-vibrato, brittle and brusque playing of the baroqueux in these works, particularly in the slow movements that sound as if the players are worried about missing the last tram or train home after the session. We do not know, of course, what Bach would have expected when he marked vivace, or andante. But the lovely largo ma non tanto of the D minor double concerto does not sound largo in the hands of Isabelle Faust and Bernhard Forck, by any stretch of the imagination. "Warum so schnell?" Bach might have asked. Two more CDs for the shelves.

Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien

In a world positively awash with superb violinists, I have always had a special affection for the playing of Alina Ibragimova. She is a highly versatile and sophisticated player, with an impeccable technique and a remarkable range of dynamics, from whispering pianissimos to passionate fortissimos. From her violin (Anselmo Bellosio c1775) she draws sounds appropriate to whatever music she is playing. I have only heard her once in person, when she played unaccompanied Bach all alone on the stage in Bath; a memorable experience.

A new CD from her with her excellent long-term musical partner, Cédric Tiberghien is devoted to four items from the late Romantic Franco-Belgian repertoire, the earliest being the sonata by César Franck (1886) and the latest a Nocturne by Lili Boulanger (1911). The poème élégiaque by Eugène Ysaÿe and a 1905 sonata by Louis Vierne complete the programme. I am the proud owner of no less than 58 different recordings of the Franck sonata; though I cannot claim to recall all 57 of the other recordings, this one has to be among the select few at the top of the rostrum. The performance by Ibragimova is a long way from her Moscow roots. In terms of sophistication, her playing reminded me on occasions of Jascha Heifetz; this sonata was one of his favourites, though Heifetz in duo sonatas always suffered from his preference for accompanists rather than partners. I suspect Ysaÿe to whom the sonata was dedicated, and who gave its first performance, would have cheered and voted for Ibragimova and Tiberghien.

The sonata by Louis Vierne is not without its interesting moments, but it does suffer from the familiar late Romantic bloat during its 33 minutes. However, I suspect it will wait several decades before receiving another recording at least the equal of this one from Ibragimova and Tiberghien.

The engineering and balance in this Hyperion recording are excellent, especially since Ibragimova's pianissimos must have posed something of a problem for the balance engineering. Altogether, a CD to enhance the current reputation of the Ibragimova-Tiberghien duo.

In Praise of Vin Rosé

I like wine. Mainly red or rosé, since I find most white wines too acidic for my taste. And normally I drink wine from France, since it's the nearest wine country to England and I know French wines and have no great need to get to know Bulgarian wines, or whatever. In addition, most French wines are made from a blending of two or more of the 63 grape varieties used in wine making; too many non-French wines seem to feature just one grape variety, which means the wines lack sophistication and become somewhat generic and predictable. A good red wine from the Bordeaux region has a sophisticated taste.

With meals, I normally drink red wine, with a preference for Côtes du Rhône, Languedoc, and Burgundy. Bordeaux has some superb wines, but they are normally priced with a big mark-up because they are Bordeaux. My normal aperitif wine is a good rosé; my current bulk purchase from Majestic Wine here in England is an excellent rosé from the Carcassonne region of south-west France. It is not expensive; it has a good rosé colour (not too pale); it is pretty dry but not at all acidic. I am drinking a glass now as I write. I find it difficult to understand why rosé wine is not more popular; only the French, Italians and Spaniards seem to make it, and few people drink it. I always found it difficult in restaurants in America to find one with a decent range of rosé wines; even in an excellent restaurant in Paris last July, the restaurant with its fine wine list featured only one rosé wine. Tough on those eating fish but not fancying red or white wine. Most of the English seemed fixated on white wine; most of the French, on red wine. I am fixated on rosé wine, when I can find it.

Hail Bright Cecilia – Purcell

Classical music has many major jewels, some of them well-known, others somewhat hidden by time. Henry Purcell's Ode to Saint Cecilia: Hail Bright Cecilia is one of music's major jewels. Lasting for 54 minutes and written in 1692 just three years before Purcell's untimely death, it is a major work full of wonderful tunes and highly sophisticated musical writing. It needs expert singers who are fully proficient in the English language; Purcell's writing for English words does not really translate into other languages, so expertly does he fit the music to each word. If the work lies somewhat outside of current main international repertoire, it is partly because of its length, partly because major classical singers are usually proficient in Italian and German, and maybe French, but rarely in English since, outside of much of the music of Purcell, Handel and Benjamin Britten, they rarely come across English texts in their working lives.

I listened to Hail Bright Cecilia today directed by Philippe Herreweghe in a 1997 Harmonia Mundi recording, the director and the company almost guaranteeing that the recording will be excellent and the musical direction sane and well-balanced; Herreweghe, like Masaaki Suzuki, was one of those conductors who just did an excellent job without trying to impose odd or outlandish personal theories, or seek notoriety through novel effects. In modern parlance: Herreweghe ticks all the boxes. His soloists are almost all native English speakers. His choir and orchestra the admirable Collegium Vocale based in Ghent. A terrific work, and this recording earning my somewhat rare three stars. Music of genius, wonderfully sung, wonderfully played, and expertly recorded. The CD also includes the earlier Cecilia Ode Welcome to All the Pleasures, written by the 22 year old Purcell. Also top-notch and, in the aria "Here the Deities Approve" featuring one of Purcell's beloved ground bass accompaniments, of which he was the master.

Hugo Wolf's Italian Songbook with Damrau and Kaufmann

Forty-six songs, one after another in the space of 76.5 minutes takes a lot of digesting and I venture rarely into Hugo Wolf's Italian Songbook. I grew up with the recording by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, two singers I have never much cared for. I also have a recording by Fischer-Dieskau and Irmgard Seefried. I invested somewhat reluctantly in a third recording because the singers are Diana Damrau and Jonas Kaufmann, both of whose voices I like very much.

Well, Damrau and Kaufmann easily take first prize as does their pianist, Helmut Deutsch. A lovely performance of the forty-six songs. It's a live recording, with the singers somewhat distant; when Kaufmann sings softly, it is sometimes difficult to hear that he is singing, let along what he is singing about, for example in the lovely opening of Nun lass uns Frieden schließen. However, for Wolf's Italian Songbook: it's Kaufmann and Damrau, with Deutsch. I doubt whether this recording will be bettered for many, many decades.