F-D RIP

My first introduction to lieder was Fischer-Dieskau singing Winterreise, but this Mahler is what I want to remember him for. The way he sighs that last word, "Traum"...

Ebsco Publishing ignores Irish Labour Court

No music in this one. Just a campaign for a fair payment. Ebsco Publishing took over The H. W. Wilson Company last year and made all staff redundant. It still won't follow the recommendation of the Irish Labour Court to make redundancy payments more in line with industry norms.

I wrote the following for our campaign blog, Wilson Pickets.

Why We Fight

If you’ve visited our Facebook page or signed our petition, or read the previous post on this blog, you’ll have noticed the imagery of David versus Goliath: we are 19 people taking on a multinational company. However, you might not have grasped the full meaning of this analogy. These days, when people think of a David-and-Goliath scenario, it’s in the context of a plucky underdog taking on a more powerful opponent and winning against the odds. But the story of David and Goliath is much more than that.

David didn’t win because he was especially brave, or because sometimes in true Hollywood fashion the little guy can beat the big guy, or because he got lucky, or even because a big sword is no match for a short-range ballistic weapon. He won because in the Biblical story there was a right side and a wrong side, and David was on the right side. All of Goliath’s size and strength were in fact irrelevant to the outcome of the fight, because Goliath was on the wrong side. And in real life, Ebsco’s market position and its profits and its assets ultimately have no bearing on this fight, because Ebsco too is on the wrong side.

Now, I don’t mean by this that Ebsco has done anything wrong. The company has met its legal obligations by providing redundancy payments that match the statutory minimum. You know when you help someone out and they thank you, and you modestly reply “It’s the least I could do” – well, that’s Ebsco. The company has, literally, done the least it could do.

Why is this not enough? Let’s take another look at the David and Goliath story. The reason David was on the right side was that God had already chosen him to be a future king. Our goals aren’t so exalted: all we want is for Ebsco to follow the recommendation of the Labour Court and offer a redundancy payment more in line with industry norms. We can’t claim divine right, but we do claim workers’ rights. We know that such rights come under threat every time a company chooses to ignore a vital mechanism for promoting good industrial relations. We know that every time a company decides not to play fair and gets away with it, it encourages other companies to do likewise and make a mockery of the system.

Although Ebsco seemed to demonstrate good faith by appearing before the Labour Court to defend its position, the company has so far ignored the court’s recommendation. And if you read the Bible you’ll see that Goliath and the Philistines also initially appeared to be interested in some form of arbitration. Instead of fighting an all-out battle, they proposed single combat to settle the issue – but when the result didn’t go the way they hoped, they turned and ran.

And so we’re now in pursuit of Ebsco, although we have no desire for conquest. We don’t want their heads. We just want a fair acknowledgement of the value of our years of work at H. W. Wilson, the fruits of which will continue to benefit Ebsco for many years to come.

We are not plucky underdogs.

We are on the right side.

And we will keep fighting until justice is done.

Classical Highlights

This is an experimental post! I've done a few "Classical Highlights" posts for Music is Good but I don't think they fit well with the overall blog content in terms of their style. So I figured I'd try to write them as proper overviews rather than just lists of albums accompanied by quotes. This of course would make for a lot of work and produce rather lengthy posts so a better approach might be for me to be selective. The latest issues of the three UK magazines give accolades to 24 discs, so I've halved that number to make my choice. Totally subjective, of course, but as Arthur O'Shaughnessy said, "We are the taste makers / And we are the choosers of stuff". These magazines have been out for a few weeks so it's a bit late to be putting this post up on Music is Good; instead I want to stick it here and "live with it" for a while to decide that it's an okay approach.

A selective overview of some of the top-rated albums in the latest issues of Gramophone (May), BBC Music Magazine (May), and International Record Review (April).

The main focus here must be the latest disc from Rafał Blechacz, a recital of Debussy and Szymanowski (DG 477 9548); it's Gramophone's Recording of the Month and a recipient of an Outstanding from International Record Review. In the latter, Nicholas Salwey says that "Blechacz is most certainly the genuine article, possessed of an immaculate technique married with musicianship of maturity and unassuming modesty". There's more piano music from Hamish Milne (Hyperion CDA67851/2), who's long been a champion of Nikolai Medtner; here he provides a two-disc selection of shorter pieces that Gramophone's Bryce Morrison says "is surely in the running for instrumental issue of the year". And we also have a couple of piano concerto discs: David Fanning in Gramophone describes as "something truly extraordinary" a recording of Shostakovich's two concertos by Alexander Melnikov (Harmonia Mundi HMC 902104), who's also joined by Isabelle Faust in the same composer's violin sonata, and in IRR Robert Matthew-Walker praises Danny Driver's performances of a pair of concertos by the rather less well-known Erik Chisholm (Hyperion CDA67880) - "one of the most important contributions to British recorded music for some considerable time".

Three Brahms discs appear this month, two of them choral. John Eliot Gardiner's recording of the German Requiem (Soli Deo Gloria SDG706) is "a minutely considered, dramatic and, in places, aptly disturbing performance", according to David Threasher in Gramophone, while the same magazine's Marc Rochester describes Philippe Herreweghe's selection of works for choir (PHI LPH003) as "a mouth-wateringly sumptuous cake of a disc". In IRR, Nigel Simeone is impressed by Andrew Manze's new set of the four Brahms symphonies (CPO 777 720-2): "one of the most fiery, original and thought-provoking sets of the symphonies to have appeared in the digital era". Another choral selection is Disc of the Month in BBC Music Magazine: Paul McCreesh's "A Song of Farewell" (Winged Lion/Signum SIGCD281) features "music of mourning and consolation" from a variety of British composers and is, Terry Blain tells us, a "beautifully planned and executed programme". In the same magazine, a recital by soprano Marlis Petersen of Goethe settings spanning two centuries (Harmonia Mundi HMC 902094) provides "revelatory musical incarnations", according to Hilary Finch, while Jonathan Harvey's opera Wagner Dream conducted by Martyn Brabbins (Cypres CYP 5624) is, Christopher Dingle says, a "compelling triumph... Harvey's sublime music does not shy away from the disturbing when necessary, yet the overwhelming impression is of beauty and integrity".
Another release of contemporary music features all four string quartets of Sofia Gubaidulina, performed by the Stamic Quartet (Supraphon SU4078-2), which Ivan Moody in IRR says is "an essential investment for any admirer" of the composer. And finally, two releases of older music. The voices of Stile Antico have combined with the viols of Fretwork to bring us "Tune thy Musicke to thy Hart" (Harmonia Mundi HMU 807554), which according to Peter Quantrill in Gramophone brings "a carefully plotted span (over 120 years) of sacred styles into our listening rooms with rare success". A somewhat obscure fretted instrument, the lirone, features on a selection of 17th-century Italian laments from the ensemble Atalante, headed by Erin Headley (Destino Classics NI6152); IRR's Andrew O'Connor notes "Without wishing to sound snobbish, this is not a programme for the casual listener. It features music written for connoisseurs. Their successors today will find this in every way an outstanding recording".

"A History of Classical Music...": progress report

The main reason I don't post much here anymore is that I'm spending my writing-about-classical-music time on A History of Classical Music through Recordings, part 5 of which should be up soon. So I'm not even going to promise a series of witty and insightful posts about the upcoming "Maestro at the Opera" or whatever it's called. However, let me interject at this point that the 4 minutes of Young Musician of the Year that I've seen so far made me want to set fire to someone at the BBC. Not everything has to be done like X Factor, for crying out loud. You don't need dramatic underscoring and dramatic editing of the judges' deliberations, in fact you don't need to turn it into a drama at all because this is a showcase for bright and enthusiastic young people with musical talent, not the fucking Hunger Games. In a word: Gaahh!

Where was I? Oh yes. It turns out people have been composing music for literally hundreds of years and apparently it's now possible to examine individual aspects of this activity and discuss them in an average of 1,200 words so that other people can read about them. And you can also create 8tracks mixes for each one, which gives me an excuse for a blog post:

Unsurprisingly, the Gregorian Chant one has had the most listens. How will the Ars Nova fare, I wonder? That'll be Part 6, before we move on to trecento Italy, then England, then back to Burgundy... According to the current plan, Part 22 will see the beginning of the Baroque period. After that - well, I won't get to that point for another year or so. Plenty of time to struggle with how much Bach to include. In the introduction to my history I noted that chronologically based beginner's guides tend to rush through medieval and Renaissance music, one example being 1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die, which devoted just 26 recordings to pre-17th-century music. I'm hoping to have 110 or thereabouts. I won't stretch to 1,000 by the end - in fact I don't know how many I'll have. Maybe 300, maybe 500. In terms of number of chapters the structure I've devised so far keeps approximate pace with one of my models, the Canadian radio series Music and Western Man, which would mean that the year 1600 isn't far from the halfway mark; the Norton A History of Western Music would put it about one-third of the way along, whereas for Richard Taruskin's Oxford History of Western Music it represents only about one-fifth of the journey. Either way, by trying to offer some sort of equal-time approach across all of musical history I'll have some interesting challenges ahead as I move from a situation where I'm focusing on finding important but little-known music to include, to one where I have to decide what well-known music to ignore. Or, to put it another way, the 13th-century Carmina Burana has been included, but should I bother with Carl Orff's much more famous version?

Halls of Fame

Oh Christ, that time of year again. But first let's check in at Gramophone, whose new Hall of Fame is much more classy than anything Classic FM can produce. Although personally I think if you're going to have a Hall of Fame, it has to be an actual hall, somewhere my in-laws can visit and send us a postcard from. Anyway, nothing too dramatic has happened in the initial phase of Gramophone's Hall, unless you feel the need to get worked up over the fact that the 50 names include Lang Lang.
You'll be glad to know, however, that teh Internets has been far more successful at ruining the latest Classic FM poll. Apparently the twenty most popular pieces of classical music among listeners of Classic FM include "Aerith's Theme" from Final Fantasy VII; Nobuo Uematsu's tinkly little weepie fits in reasonably well with the station's taste for crossover though I'm not sure what the Classic FM/Final Fantasy Venn diagram looks like. The theme from Skyrim got in as well, though only at no.238. That one's for people who think the Pirates of the Caribbean theme doesn't sound enough like Lord of the Rings, or vice versa.
So, well done nerds on your chart-spiking success, but people who like lovely choral music have beaten you in terms of number of entries, because Jaime Lannister Eric Whitacre has finally made it into the charts with three pieces, while Paul Mealor manages four, one of which, the horribly horribly mawkish "Wherever You Are" as performed by the Military Wives, is straight in at number 5. But it's a pop song, surely?
Hurrah! Western civilisation is over!

Kanye goes classical

(via Quantum Tarantino)

Nereffid, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, and Michael Scott Rohan walk into a bar...

Way the hell back in September 2010 I posted something in my "Did you even listen to the same CD?" series, in which Dmitri Hvorostovsky's disc "Pushkin Romances" was subjected to widely contrasting opinions: Michael Scott Rohan in BBC Music Magazine loved it ("compelling delivery... passionate, brooding or forceful with Pushkin's flowing lines"), while David Fanning in Gramophone hated it ("if you want a disc to reinforce your prejudice that Russian song is all cloying self-indulgence, here it is"). I noticed just the other day - I am a very bad blogger - that a couple of months ago Mr Scott Rohan had commented on that post. An excerpt:

There's much that could be said about the differences between our reviews, but I think the main one is self-evident -- the bilious tone of Gramophone's, and the invitation to dislike the entire repertoire. And, of course, the assumption that the critic is an inherently more reliable judge than an artist of established worth-- and in music to which he's native and the critic isn't.
His lofty dismissals of "generalized intensity" and "deadening uniformity" sound peculiar, when you can hear Hvorostovsky shaping Pushkin's lines -- maybe not with the hectoring emphasis of a Fischer-Dieskau, but clearly enough. It makes me wonder if in fact DF has any Russian, or at least enough to appreciate fine details of music and poetry, and consequently of their expression.
Of course every critic has off-days when he can't stand whatever has landed on his desk, and just feels like brushing the whole thing off. But that's unfair to the artist and grossly unfair to the reader -- in fact, it betrays the entire purpose of criticism.
What, after all, do expressions like "self-regarding baritonal syrup" mean? It's not critical description, it's mere generalized abuse. You could use it to rubbish any baritone; and that applies pretty much to this whole review.

Well it's always gratifying when someone in the real world takes notice of what you write, so thanks to Michael Scott Rohan for that (And yes, Nigel, it's the same Michael Scott Rohan you're thinking of). And now I can chuckle at the coincidence of opening the latest issue of BBC Music Magazine to find a 4-star review of Dmitri Hvorostovsky's new disc of Rachmaninov songs in which one Michael Scott Rohan says

the danger here is uniformity, even monotony, especially with a dark-hued, reflective composer like Rachmaninov and a language like Russian. This might explain why previous Dmitri Hvorostovsky recitals have met with some remarkably extreme criticism, even condemnation of the whole of Russian song as sentimental or worse. Such extremism seems to reflect a poor understanding of Russian poetic and musical traditions, and this recital's well placed to correct it.

"You wouldn't want to encourage this sort of thing"

So, of the 1,542 discs on the long list for the 2011 Nereffid's Guide Awards, 38 (= 2.5%) received the best possible review from one source and the worst possible review from another. (There was complete consensus on 97 discs, as it happens). In some cases, critical opinion spanned the entire spectrum - such as in Mikhail Pletnev's Tchaikovsky 5 on PentaTone and Gustavo Dudamel's Tchaikovsky/Shakespeare disc on DG. But in other cases there was general praise with one dissent. Here's some examples.

Rachmaninov: Piano concertos 3 & 4. Leif Ove Andsnes; London SO/Antonio Pappano [EMI]
Ian Lace on MusicWeb (a Recording of the Month): "the partnership of Andsnes and Pappano delivers a beautifully-judged, nicely-balanced reading of heroic power and beauty. Andsnes’s fleet and tigerish playing dazzles. There are so many little delights, so many cherishable nuances in this reading."
Richard A Kaplan in Fanfare: "The opening solo serves as a template for the entire enterprise; there is no phrasing of the melody, just a succession of notes. ... And so it goes: Technical passages are too aggressive, lyrical ones given short shrift."

Debussy, Ravel, Dutilleux: String quartets. Arcanto Quartet [Harmonia Mundi]
This got top ratings from Classics Today France, Scherzo (Spain), and Pizzicato (Luxembourg).
Fanfare's Boyd Pomeroy: "The Debussy receives a dream performance, of silken refinement and great subtlety of expression - a very French kind of animation and inflection of line, minutely attentive to nuances of dynamics, articulation, and tempo modification. ... The Ravel is every bit as good, a textural and coloristic feast"
ARG's Gil French: "... insufficient articulation that turned the sound into a legato blur. The more I listened, the more I realized that the players themselves have a very poor feel for balance. In the Debussy and Ravel both the first violinist and cellist underplay their more tender lines to such a degree that I had to force myself to even notice them. Even worse is that the Arcanto Quartet have a very poor feel for pulse. Tempos shift constantly, destroying each movement's continuity".

Mozart: Piano concertos nos.14, 15 and 21. Christian Zacharias (p); Lausanne Chamber Orchestra [MDG]
Earned a Diapason d'Or, a 10/10 from Classics Today, and an Outstanding from International Record Review.
IRR's Nigel Simeone: "playing [from Zacharias] of disciplined energy, refinement and faultless, even-toned technique. ... Altogether, this is some of the most distinguished Mozart piano concerto playing I've heard in recent years"
ARG's Donald Vroon: "So here is the latest sterile style of playing applied to Mozart's lovely concertos - and it stinks... The pianist is choppy and never plays a phrase, just a pile of unconnected, mechanical-sounding notes. ... This is simply dreadful. Don't encourage this kind of sterile dogmatism by buying it."

Schubert: Rosamunde. Musikkollegium Winterthur/Douglas Boyd [MDG]
Both Victor Carr on Classics Today and Donald Vroon in ARG agree that the best recording of Rosamunde is the Münchinger/VPO one on Decca. But for Carr, the Münchinger is "the only serious rival to this new recording", whereas Vroon opines "This new one is not even worth considering".
Carr: "Hearing the three dramatic chords that open the Zauberharfe overture played by this excellent Swiss orchestra (the oldest in Switzerland) I was immediately struck by the clarity of attack and rich instrumental color. As the performance progresses the Musikkollegium Winterthur exhibits an alluring full-bodied tone and characterful playing completely in the Schubertian style."
Vroon: "Atrocious. This is another misconceived fad recording; don't buy it - you wouldn't want to encourage this sort of thing. ... conductors like Boyd are determined to uglify our music - even romantic music like this. SACD sound is no help when the orchestra is made to play like a baroque band and sounds so terrible."

Musical architecture

Yes, I know you're very excited about season 2 of Game of Thrones, but this isn't a new set design. It's one of a series of images taken from inside musical instruments, commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic.
A gallery of images is here.

Rise of the Masters!

A series of really cheap downloads from X5 Music Group, actually very good value, and oh look at the covers:

"Great news, darling! A Swedish record company has seen my work in that sporting goods catalogue, and they've asked me to pose as Beethoven!"
"But you look nothing like Beethoven".
"Well, they give me a wig. Here, look..."
"Wait, did you say Beethoven or Michael Heseltine?"

They don't seem to have a Dvorak collection, but when they do produce one, they can save a bit of money because they don't need anyone to pose this time - all they need to do is change the title on the Debussy one:


Seriously. These composers are actually going to fight crime. Tonight on CBS!

8tracks mix: Nereffid's Guide Awards 2011

Here's a single mix created on 8tracks: one track from each of the 16 category winners.

Nereffid's Guide Awards 2011 from nereffid on 8tracks.

Nereffid's Guide Awards 2011: Classical Albums of the Year

Somehow I have managed to bring you The 5th annual Nereffid's Guide Awards, celebrating the best-reviewed classical albums of the year.

The Nereffid's Guide Awards are created by reading an awful lot of reviews, in print and online, and turning the reviewers' opinions into numbers that can be crunched to reflect some sort of critical consensus and reveal which albums found most favour. This year things are bigger than ever: not only do we have our old favourites - the magazines Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, International Record Review, American Record Guide and Fanfare and the online sources MusicWeb International and Classics Today, plus Klassik Heute, Audiophile Audition, and Classics Today France - but I've also made use of several more online sources that at least provide information about which albums they rated highly: the foreign-language magazines Diapason (France), Luister (Netherlands), Scherzo (Spain), and Pizzicato (Luxembourg), plus the online Resmusica and Muse Baroque, and the Preis der Deutsche Schallplatten Kritik (the German Critics' Prize to you). Not only that, but this year there are two new categories: Archive and Reissue cover all those not-new albums that nevertheless have an impact.

Such attempts to turn a bunch of people's opinions into some sort of statistical fact must of course be taken with a grain of salt, and yet... these may very well be the best-reviewed albums of 2011.
Scroll down the page to see each award in turn, or click on the following links:
Medieval & Renaissance
Baroque - Instrumental
Baroque - Vocal
Solo instrumental
Chamber
Concerto
Symphony
Orchestral
Solo vocal
Choral
Opera
Opera recital
Living composer - Instrumental
Living composer - Vocal
Archive
Reissue

As always, my gratitude goes out to the musicians, record labels, and composers whose endeavours have added value to the universe, and of course I urge you to buy and enjoy their albums. If you keep scrolling down you'll find a post in which I attempt to regale you with fascinating facts about the process through which I created these Awards. And tune in later for some 8tracks mixes that reveal how good these albums are.

Awards 2011 - Medieval & Renaissance

"Puer natus est: Tudor music for Advent and Christmas"
Stile Antico
Harmonia Mundi

If you haven't heard of Stile Antico by now, then you really haven't been paying attention to the Nereffid's Guide Awards, because this is their third appearance in a row, and their second time winning this category. They must be pretty good, huh? Here's John Quinn on MusicWeb: "The group produces a lovely, even sound and throughout this disc tuning, ensemble and blend seemed impeccable to me. They also sing with great clarity – every line is crystal clear – and the balance between the voices and parts is superb – and this is all the more remarkable when you consider that they don’t have a conductor to regulate the performances as they proceed." Praise, too, for the music itself: in IRR, Christopher Price comments on Tallis's "sublime masterpiece" Videte miraculum and his "astonishingly complex and beautiful" Missa "Puer natus est", not to mention Byrd's "masterpieces of subtle polyphonic writing", White's "glorious" Magnificat and Sheppard's "typically exuberant, wide-ranging, harmonically daring and structurally complex Verbum caro".

Runners-up:
Striggio: Mass in 40 Parts, etc
I Fagiolini/Robert Hollingworth
Decca

Byrd: Complete consort music
Phantasm
Linn

"Dinastia Borgia"
La Capella Reial de Catalunya; Hesperion XXI/Jordi Savall
Alia Vox

Victoria: Requiem 1605; Lobo: Lamentationes
Tenebrae/Nigel Short
Signum

I suppose I should note my disappointment, though not my surprise, that this category is far more Renaissance than Medieval. That's just the nature of things - medieval music is very much a niche. Perhaps another "Feather on the Breath of God" is just around the corner. At least we have Jordi Savall to span the centuries. What else to note? Well, it's somewhat unusual to see Decca in the early music field. In fact this is the only one of 32 entries on this category's long list to be from a major label. Yes, it received a lot of hype, but clearly it was also very good. There were a handful of Victoria discs pottering about the list, as you might hope seeing as he was an "anniversary composer", but Tenebrae's album was definitely the one that stood out.

Awards 2011 - Baroque - Instrumental

"Venezia" - music of Rosenmüller, Legrenzi, Stradella
The Rare Fruits Council/Manfredo Kraemer
Ambronay

Here's some string sonatas from three composers who found themselves in Venice in the 1670s. As Catherine Moore explains in American Record Guide, "Their writing for strings drew on different traditions, advanced the evolution of string chamber music, and further cemented the violin's ascendant position as a solo and ensemble instrument". Of the disc itself she says "This is excellent in all ways", and you can rest assured that "Venezia" is not simply a history lesson. As Gary Higginson says on MusicWeb, "By its exemplary musicianship with often breath-taking virtuosity (listen especially to Stradella's Sinfonia XI), superb presentation, beautifully balanced sound-picture and sheer musical pleasure this is a disc for any lover of the baroque or of chamber music."

Runners-up:
Telemann: Tafelmusik
Freiburger Barockorchester/Petra Müllejans, Gottfried von der Goltz
Harmonia Mundi

Rameau: Orchestral suites
Le Concert des Nations/Jordi Savall
Alia Vox

Jones: Sets of Lessons for the Harpsichord
Mitzi Meyerson
Glossa

Biber: Rosary sonatas
Daniel Sepec; Hille Perl; Lee Santana; Michael Behringer
Coviello

The Rare Fruits Council won this one on a technical decision over the Freiburgers. Their scores were the same - to three decimal places! I decided to go with the album that had the most 5s, which turned out to be "Venezia". So if you're gutted that Telemann didn't make the big time, well, tough luck. Take it up with the US Supreme Court. Meanwhile let us note a second appearance in this year's awards for Jordi Savall, as well as first appearances (ever!) for the labels Ambronay and Coviello.

Awards 2011 - Baroque - Vocal

Bach: Easter Oratorio; Ascension Oratorio
Retrospect Ensemble/Matthew Halls
Linn

David Vernier on Classics Today calls these performances "as fine as - or better than - any in the catalog", while on MusicWeb John Quinn describes the album as "one of the most effervescent discs of Bach's vocal music to have come my way in a long time". Both writers note the joyfulness in the music, so I suppose we shall add a Huzzah! for the Retrospect Ensemble, founded only a couple of years ago and managing to triumph over some very well-established groups. Incidentally, more than one reviewer draws attention to Nia Lewis's extensive booklet note, which spends some time discussing the artistic complications raised by the fact that these are "parody" works based on secular originals. Can you really convert profane music to proper religious music just by changing the words? Steven Ritter on Audiophile Audition gets as profound as perhaps the topic needs: "ultimately I wonder if it matters a hoot... I think that first and foremost Bach was a man trying to put dinner on the table".

Runners-up:
Melani: Motets
Concerto Italiano/Rinaldo Alessandrini
Naive

Caldara in Vienna: Forgotten castrato arias
Philippe Jaroussky; Concerto Köln/Emmanuelle Haïm
Virgin

Vivaldi: Ottone in Villa
Sonia Prina, etc; Il Giardino Armonico/Giovanni Antonini
Naive

Johann Ludwig Bach: Trauermusik
soloists; RIAS Kammerchor; Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin/Hans-Christoph Rademann
Harmonia Mundi

As I said, some big names here in terms of ensembles, if not necessarily of composers. Melani is Rome-based composer Alessandro Melani (1639-1703), while Johann Ludwig Bach (1677-1731) was Sebastian's cousin - Wikipedia says second cousin, but I think it was more distant than that. As for Antonio Caldara (c1671-1736) and what he did in Vienna, all Wikipedia can tell us is that he obtained a post there with the Imperial court in 1716 "and there he remained until his death". Philippe Jaroussky gives us rather more insight than that. Finally, Vivaldi. You may have heard of him.

Awards 2011 - Solo instrumental

Ravel: Complete solo piano music
Steven Osborne
Hyperion

Christopher Dingle in BBC Music Magazine points out that "A complete survey of Ravel's piano music is an especially challenging prospect for any pianist", but fortunately "Osborne is more than up to the task... Throughout, Osborne repeatedly demonstrates not merely that these performances stand with the best, but also that comparisons are superfluous in the face of such a compelling vision". Nicholas Salwey in IRR confirms: "there is phenomenal competition in this repertoire... but Osborne's accounts can hold their own with any of these". In fact, "Osborne may have set a new benchmark". Meanwhile, Alan Becker in ARG draws attention to various other performers too, but advises "purchase this one first".

Runners-up:
Schumann: Humoreske; 6 Studies in Canon Form; Gesänge der Frühe
Piotr Anderszewski
Virgin

Brahms: Handel variations; Rhapsodies op.79; Piano pieces opp.118 & 119
Murray Perahia
Sony

Liszt: "Harmonies du soir"
Nelson Freire
Decca

Scarlatti: Piano sonatas
Alexandre Tharaud
Virgin

The winner didn't seem to be in much doubt here, though as I compiled the results from foreign-language sources I wondered if Nelson Freire (who won the chamber award last year with Martha Argerich) might sneak it, but in the end he was sunk by a disappointed ARG reviewer. I must point out here one long-standing rule for the Awards: baroque music played on a modern piano isn't counted as baroque. And of course it's worth reflecting on whether we should have a separate award for solo instrumentalists who play something other than a piano - but then again, this year any potential candidates were quite some distance from the top of the list.

Awards 2011 - Chamber

Mozart: String quartets nos.4, 17, 22
Jerusalem Quartet
Harmonia Mundi

"Acquire this CD at once", Jerry Dubins demands in his Fanfare review, and who are we to resist? "the Jerusalem's players believe strongly enough in Mozart to know instinctively that his music needs no help in expressing itself, and that the highest respect one can pay it is to play the written notes as perfectly as possible. The result is not, as you might expect, performances that are bland and characterless, but sound instead as if they are coming straight from the mind of the creator to our ears". On Classics Today, Victor Carr Jr opines "Even if you don't think you like Mozart string quartets, this exceptional disc will make you think again", while in ARG David Jacobsen says "This one is a necessity... These pieces are so popular that I often hear them played very unimaginatively and standardized. The Jerusalem Quartet does not do that, but they do not try to reinvent the wheel either. Rather, they reintroduce us to the profound simplicity and even plainness of Mozart's genius".

Runners-up:
Beethoven: String quartets nos.12-16
Tokyo Quartet
Harmonia Mundi

Schubert: Piano duets
Paul Lewis; Steven Osborne
Hyperion

"Rapsodia"
Patricia Kopatchinskaja and others
Naive

Bacewicz: Piano quintets nos.1 & 2; Piano sonata no.2
Krystian Zimerman; Kaja Danczowska; Agata Szymczewska; Ryszard Groblewski; Rafal Kwiatkowski
DG

The Jerusalm Quartet won this one by quite a big margin. Perhaps that was a little surprising, though I think it was because a few likely competitors didn't quite catch fire the way I thought they might. But a good field of runners-up none the less, and I'm glad to see the not-so-well-known Grazyna Bacewicz rubbing shoulders with Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, and also to see attention paid to Patricia Kopatchinskaja's quirky collection.

Awards 2011 - Concerto

Bruch: Violin concerto no.1; Piano quintet; Romance
Vadim Gluzman with chamber musicians; Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/Andrew Litton
BIS

Whoa - sounds like Christopher Fifield of MusicWeb is pulling rank on us here: "An understandable reaction to yet another performance of Bruch's first violin concerto would surely have elicited much eye-rolling and a lot of invective from the composer, who always exhorted violinists to play one of the other eight concerted works for the instrument. As his biographer I can guarantee that". Yikes! Is there any hope for Vadim Gluzman? Yes there is: "Yet I would be surprised if he did not like what he hears here. Vadim Gluzman, with a finely attentive accompanist in Andrew Litton and his responsive Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, plays it superbly - it's quite the finest performance I have ever heard, including Kreisler's famous 1925 recording". And if you're wondering whether a disc that is 40% chamber music is entitled to be considered as a Concerto disc, rest assured that in the quintet, as Fifield puts it, "the first violin is the virtuoso while its four colleagues (including a second viola) take on a comparatively subsidiary role".

Runners up:
Hindemith: Works for viola and orchestra
Lawrence Power; BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/David Atherton
Hyperion

CPE Bach: Harpsichord concertos
Andreas Staier; Freiburger Barockorchester/Petra Müllejans
Harmonia Mundi

Martinů, Hindemith, Honegger: Cello concertos
Johannes Moser; Deutsche Radio Philharmonie/Christoph Poppen
Hänssler

Sarasate: Music for violin and orchestra, volume 3
Tianwa Yang; Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra/Ernest Martínez Izquierdo
Naxos

Why is an album of harpsichord concertos not in the Baroque section, you may well ask. The answer is simply that they were written in the early 1770s, which I don't think we can reasonably call the Baroque period. An interesting fact about this category is that the scores from the foreign-language sources made a big impact - enthusiasm from France and Spain helped Gluzman's album overcome ARG's negative review. Actually it's the only one of the 16 award winners that a reviewer truly disliked. But it triumphed: someone should make a movie about it.

Awards 2011 - Symphony

Suk: Asrael
Czech Philharmonic Orchestra/Charles Mackerras
Supraphon

Was there an element of sentiment involved in Charles Mackerras's win here? He had died a little less than a year before reviewers got to listen to this album, so perhaps they allowed their judgement to be clouded a tiny bit. But it's clear the disc won on its own merits: Fanfare's Jonathan Woolf calls it "a performance of grip, precision, structural acuity, and expressive power". In Gramophone, Rob Cowan notes that "It's always problematical when a new recording has to confront rivalry from an almost impossibly great benchmark... in this particular context, Václav Talich's 1952 Czech Philharmonic recording". But, he points out, "Mackerras actually learnt Asrael from Talich and this performance... betrays an almost symbiotic identification with the music". Jan Smaczny in BBC Music Magazine calls this recording "the closest to the definitive version we have".

Runners-up:
Korngold: Symphony; Much Ado about Nothing
Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg/Marc Albrecht
PentaTone

Walton: Symphonies nos.1 & 2
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Martyn Brabbins
Hyperion

Borodin: Symphonies nos.1-3
Seattle Symphony/Gerard Schwarz
Naxos

Shostakovich: Symphony no.10
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Vasily Petrenko
Naxos

I completely failed to predict this one. I was pretty sure Petrenko had it: his Shostakovich won the Symphony Award in 2009 and was runner-up in 2010 - and in fact under 2011's rules he would have won it then because he was pipped by what I would now classify as an Archive recording, Mahler from Klaus Tennstedt. But ARG wasn't so keen. Is it always ARG that's the downer? Not always. This year was clearly a good one for a particular kind of symphony - ones a classical enthusiast probably knows already but that are not necessarily counted among the elite.

Awards 2011 - Orchestral

Britten: Cello Symphony; Gloriana - Symphonic Suite; Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes
BBC Philharmonic/Edward Gardner; Paul Watkins
Chandos

Two Britten discs from Edward Gardner in this category, and he wins with what David Hurwitz on Classics Today calls "outstanding performances, as good or better than the composer's own... In short, this release is a major entry in the Britten discography". For Helen Wallace in BBC Music Magazine, "Three elements stand out: firstly, the dramatic intensity of purpose he finds in all pieces; secondly, the sizzling soloistic detail he draws from the BBC Philharmonic and, thirdly, the depth and scope of the recorded sound". There's little to add, as other reviewers say pretty much the same things.

Runners-up:
Halvorsen: Orchestral works, volume 2
Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/Neeme Järvi; Marianne Thorsen
Chandos

Britten: Phaedra; A Charm of Lullabies; Lachrymae; Sinfonietta; Two Portraits
BBC Philharmonic/Edward Gardner; Sarah Connolly; Maxim Rysanov
Chandos

Respighi: Pines of Rome; Fountains of Rome; Roman Festivals
São Paulo Symphony Orchestra/John Neschling
BIS

Fuchs: Serenades nos.1 & 2; Andante grazioso and Capriccio
Cologne Chamber Orchestra/Christian Ludwig
Naxos

So, a good year for Chandos, then. Occasionally I question the wisdom of splitting off Symphony from Orchestral (especially when a disc is half-filled with a symphony and half-filled with other orchestral music) but it seems to work well. If we put the two together, then this year there'd be 3 symphony albums and 2 others, and Suk's Asrael would be the narrow winner. But you're not really comparing like with like.