Now he's got a graph

What on earth is this? I quickly ran through the list of all the pieces of music that have appeared on the Classic FM Hall of Fame since 1996, and tagged any that I considered "Classic FM music", the stuff that's not "classical" in the strict sense. So this is a graph of the number of such pieces in each chart, beginning with 0 in 1996 and rising all the way to 47 in 2014.

The 3 pieces that appeared in 1997 were Jenkins's "Adiemus", Zipoli's "Elevazione", and Nyman's "The Piano" soundtrack. The following year, Nyman dropped out, and Paul McCartney's "Standing Stones" stormed in at no.76 (it's only been seen once since 2002). 1999 saw the first of the movie Johns, Williams's "Star Wars" music, then 2000 gave us Ungar's "Ashokan Farewell", Einaudi's "Le Onde", and the other John (Barry)'s "The Beyondness of Things", as well as Williams's "Schindler's List". I could go on like this all day, but anyway, the point is: from about 1% in the early days, "non-classical" now constitutes about 15% of the Hall of Fame.

What's important to note is that a lot of the "non-classical" music is actually new music, which gets into the HoF not long after being written or recorded. (I find it interesting that the once-ubiquitous Myers "Cavatina" has only been in the HoF once, at no.299 in 2003!).

I should also point out that "non-classical" seems to account for much less than 15% (I'd say, at a rough guess, below 10%) of the station's output.

Now go draw your own conclusions.

Fun with the Classic FM Hall of Fame

OTOM, as Cicero might have texted. Yes, it's just gone Easter, and time for another Classic FM Hall of Fame for the serious classical music lover to bemoan!

(Previous Les Introuvables cover available here: 2010, 2011, 2012. Hmm, the absence of a 2013 comment shows the parlous state of this blog, doesn't it?)

So the news is that VW's Lark is back on top of the chart, thanks in large part (if one is to believe the bumf, and why wouldn't one?) to its use in the much-watched death scene of Hayley Cropper on Coronation Street (I didn't know this; I read it).

Yeah, that's not the news is it? Because the most important news is that Tchaikovsky's Capriccio Italien is at no.140. No, wait, that's not it either. Oh yes: video games. Lots of game music - music from 8 games to be exact, according to Digital Spy. The trend began two years ago with a couple of suspiciously high new entries, but Classic FM seems to have embraced the concept now, informing us:

This year's chart also revealed a huge rise in popularity in orchestral music used in video games, with eight entries in the top 300 including two in the top 20.  Since Classic FM started playing video game soundtracks regularly last year, the station has attracted a significant number of new, younger listeners.  In the last year alone, the number of 15 to 24 year olds listening to Classic FM each week has grown by 27 per cent. 

Ah, it was all part of a cunning plan, or something. Well sure lookit, if it gets the young folk off their mopeds and their heroin and starts them listening to Beethoven instead then it must be a good thing. Though the scientist in me wants to know, "27 per cent of what?" of course.

The games thing is part of a broader trend in the Hall of Fame, though, Back in 2010 I speculated on whether one could draw any grand conclusions from the many years of data. I wasn't so sure at the time, but looking at it now - there have been 19 charts - I notice one clear change over the years. Let's put on our nerd goggles!

Comparing the first Hall from 1996 with the latest version reveals that they have 196 works in common. Not all of these works were in every single chart; about 40 of them disappeared at some point and then returned. We can look at a few changes in fortune here. Borodin's In the Steppes of Central Asia started off at no.221 and has showed a general upward trend, peaking this year at 47. Schubert's Trout quintet has gradually sunk from no.27 to no.154, while his String quintet has had an even greater fall, from 56 to 215. Why, I wonder? I suppose the Borodin fits better into the overall "sound world" of today's Classic FM, and anyway chamber music has never been a significant feature of the Hall of Fame.

But Nereffid, I hear you grunt, what is this "sound world" of which you speak? Well. Let's look at the pieces that were in the Hall of Fame in 1996 and aren't in the 2014 one, and vice versa.

Here's what's been lost:

Beethoven Fidelio

Beethoven Triple Concerto (Violin, Cello and Piano)

Beethoven Violin sonata no.5, Spring

Bellini Norma

Berlioz L'Enfance du Christ

Boccherini String Quintet (Minuet)

Brahms Symphony no.2

Chopin Fantaisie-Impromptu in C sharp minor

Delius Walk to the Paradise Garden

Donizetti Lucia di Lammermoor

Dvorak Serenade for Strings in E

Elgar Coronation Ode, op.44 no.6, Land of Hope & Glory

Elgar String Serenade in E minor

Elgar Violin Concerto

Franck Panis Angelicus

Gluck Orfeo and Euridice

Gounod St Cecilia Mass (Sanctus)

Hummel Trumpet Concerto in Eb

Mahler Symphony no. 3

Mahler Symphony no. 4 in G

Mendelssohn Elijah

Mendelssohn Symphony no.3, Scottish

Monteverdi Vespers

Mozart Horn Concerto no. 4 in Eb

Mozart Mass no.18 in C minor, Great

Mozart Piano concerto no.27

Mozart Sinfonia Concertante in Eb

Mozart Symphony no.39 in Eb

Offenbach The Tales of Hoffman

Paganini Violin Concerto no. 1 in Eb

Pergolesi Stabat Mater

Prokofiev Symphony no.1 in D (Classical)

Puccini Turandot

Purcell Dido and Aeneas

Ravel Daphnis et Chloe

Rossini Barber of Seville

Saint-Saëns Intro and Rondo Capriccioso

Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto no. 2

Schubert Symphony no. 8 in B minor (Unfinished)

Strauss R Der Rosenkavalier

Vaughan Williams Symphony no. 1 (A Sea Symphony)

Verdi La Forza del Destino

Verdi Rigoletto

Vivaldi Mandolin Concerto RV425

Wagner Siegfried

That's a pretty solid list of standard classical repertoire, isn't it?

OK, brace yourself.

Here come the works that appear in 2014 but not in 1996:

Addinsell Warsaw Concerto

Armstrong Romeo and Juliet

Bach Cantata BWV208 'Sheep may Safely Graze'

Bach Cello Suites

Bach The Well-Tempered Clavier

Badelt Pirates of the Caribbean

Barber Violin Concerto

Barry Dances with Wolves 'John Dunbar Theme'

Barry Out of Africa

Beethoven Coriolan Overture

Bernstein Candide overture

Binge Elizabethan Serenade

Binge Sailing By

Brower World of Warcraft

Bruch Adagio appassionato for violin & orchestra, op.57

Coates Dambusters March

Debussy Arabesque no. 1

Debussy The Girl with the Flaxen Hair (Preludes)

Delius Florida Suite

Dvorak American Suite, op.98b

Einaudi Divenire

Einaudi I Giorni

Einaudi Le Onde

Elgar Pomp and Circumstance 4 in G major

Elgar Salut d'amour

Finzi Clarinet Concerto in C minor

Finzi Eclogue

Finzi Five Bagatelles

Gershwin Walking the Dog

Glass Violin Concerto

Godfrey The Mirror of Love

Gold Doctor Who

Grieg Lyric Pieces (Wedding Day at Troldhaugen)

Handel Sarabande

Hawes Fair Albion

Hawes Highgrove Suite

Hawes Quanta Qualia (Blue in Blue)

Haydn Cello Concerto no.1 in C

Hess Ladies in Lavender

Hess Piano Concerto

Jenkins Adiemus (Songs of Sanctuary)

Jenkins Palladio

Jenkins The Armed Man - A Mass for Peace

Khachaturian Masquerade

Kirkhope Banjo Kazooie

Kirkhope Kingdoms of Amalur

Kirkhope Viva Pinata

Lauridsen O Magnum Mysterium

Litolff Concerto Symphonique no. 4 in D minor

Long Embers

Long Porcelain

Long The Aviators

Long To Dust

MacCunn The Land of the Mountain and the Flood

Marquez Danzon no.2

Maxwell Davies Farewell to Stromness

Mitchell Seven Wonders Suite

Morricone The Mission (Gabriel's Oboe)

Mozart A Musical Joke

Mozart Adagio for Violin in E, K261

Mozart Bassoon Concerto in B flat

Mozart Piano Concerto no.11 in F

Parry I Was Glad

Parry Jerusalem

Pärt Spiegel im Spiegel

Piazzolla Libertango

Rachmaninov Piano Concerto no. 1 in F# minor

Ravel Piano concerto in G

Satie Gnossiennes (No.1)

Schubert Impromptu no.3 in G flat (Impromptus, op.90)

Shimomura Kingdom Hearts

Shore The Hobbit

Shore The Lord of the Rings

Shostakovich Assault on Beautiful Gorky (The Unforgettable Year 1919)

Shostakovich Jazz Suite no.1

Shostakovich Jazz Suite no.2

Sibelius Andante Festivo

Soule The Elder Scrolls (Skyrim)

Stopford Do Not Be Afraid

Stopford Irish Blessing

Stopford Lully, Lulla, Lullay

Strauss, J II Die Fledermaus

Sullivan The Yeomen of the Guard

Tavener Song for Athene

Uematsu Final Fantasy (Aerith's Theme)

Ungar The Ashokan Farewell

Vaughan Williams Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus

Vivaldi Concerto for 2 Mandolins RV532

Wagner Gotterdammerung

Walton Crown Imperial

Whitacre Lux Aurumque

Whitacre Sleep

Whitacre The Seal Lullaby

Williams & Doyle Harry Potter

Williams E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

Williams Jurassic Park

Williams Saving Private Ryan

Williams Schindler's List

Williams Star Wars

Wintory Journey

Wiseman Wilde

Zimmer Gladiator

Zimmer Inception

Zipoli Elevazione

Yes, we've lost Vivaldi's Mandolin concerto and gained his 2-Mandolin concerto. We've lost Siegfried and gained Gotterdammerung. We've lost one Strauss's Rosenkavalier and gained another Strauss's Fledermaus. And, yay, Bach cello suites!

But observe the presence not just of the games composers but also of John Barry, Howard Shore, John Williams, and Hans Zimmer; Ludovico Einaudi and Karl Jenkins; Patrick Hawes, Nigel Hess, Helen Jane Long; Philip Stopford and Eric Whitacre.

We can call this a trend, can't we? A gradual evolution from a list full of what you might call regular classical music, towards something rather more like... well, I tend to call it "Classic FM sort of music". And so Classic FM's listeners are, increasingly, not "people who like classical music" but "people who like the music on Classic FM". Perhaps in another 10 years the change will be so great that it won't make sense for a classical music blogger to write about the Classic FM Hall of Fame!

Claudio Abbado

The problem with musical tastes that are, as I keep saying, broad rather than deep is that when someone as significant and much-loved as Claudio Abbado dies, I can't add useful insight. Yes, I really like such-and-such a recording but I'm not qualified to explain to you why it was maestro Abbado's insert conducting quality here that lifted it to the realms of the transcendent. I can tell you that I was once transfixed when I turned on the radio and heard him conducting the slow movement of Mahler's 6th. I can tell you that the first proper Abbado recording I bought was a Decca selection of Hindemith on which he led the LSO in the Symphonic Metamorphoses, and I'm really fond of that album. I can even tell you that the first non-proper Abbado recording I owned was an excerpt from his recording of Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande on a Classic CD cover disc (issue 23, the one I keep going on about), though I'll admit that didn't particularly catch my ear. Also, his was the only Beethoven 9 I had for a long time. And the most recent of his recordings that I own seems to be his work with Isabelle Faust on the Berg and Beethoven violin concertos.

He will be missed. I suspect this will be the only obituary/appreciation/inane rambling that gives you Abbado's Spitting Image puppet though.

Top 23 of 2013 (supplemental)

Supplemental, that is, to my list on Music is Good. Yes, go read the thing there. But here is the list without pictures or commentary (it's ordered more-or-less thematically rather than by "quality"):

Petitgirard: The Little Prince. Laurent Petitgirard conducting (Naxos)
“Spheres". Daniel Hope (Deutsche Grammophon)
“Violin Lullabies”. Rachel Barton Pine (Cedille)
“Wagner”. Jonas Kaufmann (Decca)
Mahler: Orchestral Songs. Christian Gerhaher (Sony)
Eisler: Lieder. Matthias Goerne (Harmonia Mundi)
Dvořák: Stabat Mater. Philippe Herreweghe conducting (Phi)
“Songs of Olden Times”. Heinavanker (Harmonia Mundi)
Monteverdi: Heaven and Earth. Robert King (Vivat)
“Io vidi in terra”. José Lemos (Sono Luminus)
Telemann: Hoffnung des Wiedersehens. Dorothee Mields (DHM)
“Bach Re-invented”. Absolute Ensemble/Kristjan Järvi (Sony)
Cassuto: Return to the Future. Álvaro Cassuto conducting (Naxos)
Schafer: String quartets nos.8-12. Quatuor Molinari (Atma)
“Thrum”. Minneapolis Guitar Quartet (Innova)
“Full Power”. Trombone Unit Hannover (Genuin)
“Transitions”. Olga Pashchenko (Fuga Libera)
Mompou: Piano music. Arcadi Volodos (Sony)
Pärt: Piano music. Jeroen van Veen (Brilliant)
“Variations on a Theme by Scarlatti”. Matan Porat (Mirare)
Roth: Sometime I Sing. Mark Padmore, Morgan Szymanski (Signum)
Nørgård: Songs from Evening Land. Helene Gjerris (Dacapo)
Stravinsky, Borodin, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky. Mythos (Orchid) 

So, in lieu of examining the trends of the now-defunct Nereffid's Guide Awards, let me analyse this list instead!

My purchases during the year were, as usual, mostly via eMusic, which with my cheap old subscriptions is a real godsend. But 6 of the Top 23 came from elsewhere - all major labels. In fact, I bought only 2 other new albums from outside eMusic. Well, I suppose if I'm willing to pay a higher price for something, that means it's going to be less of a risk and it will be something I expect to like a lot. Interestingly, the 6 majors on the list were represented as: 2 from Universal (1 Decca, 1 DG) and 4 from Sony (including the DHM label). I hadn't really considered Sony a significant releaser of Stuff I Like until now.

One thing that pleases me about my Top 23 (yes, aside from the fact that 23 is a prime number) is the variety. I made no deliberate effort to be representative—no thoughts of "well, I have to include this because I don't have anything else from that genre". That said, there's no "difficult modern music" to speak of, and the classical mainstream is underrepresented compared with the world of new releases generally. But the former I tend not to like, and the latter I tend to already own some recording of and so I'm more keen to buy music I haven't heard.

What's most heartening is that almost none of the albums on the list came recommended to me by a review (IIRC, only the Trombone Unit Hannover and Arcadi Volodos releases). For many years I've read lots of reviews and used the judgement of others to point me in the right direction—not that I slavishly follow the tastes of the majority, but I found it a very useful way of drawing my attention to things I reckoned I'd like. Before that, too, there was a lot of filling up the repertoire in my collection (composer X is a "great composer", so I should have his symphonies), which gave me a lot of music that was worthy but not necessarily something I loved; the collector in me is adamant that this wasn't a huge waste of time or money because (a) it helped me establish my actual tastes and (b) I know my tastes do and will change over the years. Also, back before the Download Age and the ability to sample before buying, I was rather more hit-and-miss with things I thought I might like. All of this is to say that I've had multiple excuses for not having the courage to choose albums based solely on my own desires rather than the encouragement of others, but I've finally ditched those excuses and, huzzah!, it turns out I actually know what I'm doing after all.

NGA RIP

The 2013 Nereffid's Guide Awards should be coming up around now, shouldn't they? Alas, there will be no more Nereffid's Guide Awards. Well, I say "alas" but that's in the general sense, the sense that it's a pity that after six years an entertaining and, to some small number of people at least, useful thing should come to an end. In the specific sense, the 2013 awards, I'm mostly relieved to be shut of it, which sounds a bit harsh but bear with me. 

There were a few reasons for the awards' demise. One was financial: the review magazines cost a bit of money over the course of a year, and cutbacks needed to be made. Another was one I referred to a while back: I've stopped waiting for reviews to decide what albums to get, instead looking for brand-new releases. That, inevitably, eliminated the immediate (as opposed to archival) value of getting any magazines, which made the decision to stop getting them a lot easier. The third, and not an insignificant one, was that collating all those reviews was bloody hard work. True, hobbies that require little effort aren't much fun, but I was finding that the work being put in wasn't balanced by the pleasure obtained at seeing it done.

Also, let's be honest, site traffic shows that I'm not going to be upsetting thousands of people by giving up. There was some buzz with it back in the eMusic days but that was a while ago, and I never did it for the publicity anyway. I'm sure that someone could carve out a nice successful niche with a web site that collates classical reviews (Classical Digest exists but doesn't have new material) and presents awards at the end of the year. But that person isn't me. (Though if you know someone with technical expertise and money, call me...)

Thoughts on "Transitions".

I had this great idea for a Music Is Good article in which I would combine a review of Olga Pashchenko's wonderful debut album "Transitions" with a discussion of how it reflected various preconceptions that could be entertained about classical music. Things that I had "learned and unlearned". But it soon struck me that the reader might never have had such preconceptions or even been aware of their existence, and hence I'd have a much harder case to make. So instead I can write about it here, where I can put in any old shite and not feel like I'm letting anyone down.

Such thoughts of preconceptions were also encouraged by my by-the-way noticing that the EMI compilation "The Classic Experience" was released in 1988 and I thus can say that classical music has been a feature of my listening habits for an even quarter-century. (I can't actually remember the exact circumstances of that album appearing; I think we got it for my father for his birthday or something. I can't even say for certain that this was the first classical album I listened to with any regularity. I might have had a few other things before it. Screw it, this is my memoir, and I get to say what's an acceptable level of fact).

It'd be a nice coincidence if Olga Pashchenko were herself a quarter-century old, but she's a little older than that. You can have a listen to the album and read the sleeve notes on the relevant page at Outhere Music, so all we'll say by summary here is that it's a fortepiano recital featuring music by Dussek, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn. Come to think of it, if you have good enough eyesight you could have got that from the cover image above. (See? I can put in any old shite!).

Now here's the preconceptions bit.

1. Classical music can be divided neatly into periods.

OK, this one wasn't a preconception I started out with, in as much as back in 1988 it was all just "classical music" and I had no real notion of what the chronology of it was. But I soon learned that there were these eras: Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and... well, it got a bit tricky then because Modern included music written nearly a century earlier as well as much more recent music that didn't sound as modern as some of the older modern stuff. Also you could have Early Music which sometimes included Baroque. This sort of thing is generally very helpful for organising your thoughts, but—as the current chapter of A History of Classical Music will show if I ever get around to finishing it—there are grey areas. Which is where Olga Pashchenko finally comes in, because "Transitions" is about the move from Classical to Romantic. Beethoven's op.33 Bagatelles are from 1802 but if anything they mark a transition from Baroque to Romantic; conceptually they're the sort of character pieces a Couperin or Schumann might have written. And the other pieces... well, you can spend ages attempting to identify Classical versus Romantic notions in all of these works, but ultimately that's just an academic exercise. The great thing about being a music listener today is that we can listen to anything whenever we like; "new" music is like as not several centuries old. So these classical eras are useful guides but we can also say "so what?" Here's some Dufay, here's some Dutilleux...

2. Piano music belongs on a grand piano.

Olga Pashchenko here plays on two fortepianos, an instrument that in 1988 I was unaware of. I remember one of the first issues of Classic CD I read (circa 1993 for the sake of argument) had something about Melvyn Tan in it (also an anecdote about someone being told that Melvyn Tan was one of the top fortepianists in the world, and wondering who the other 39 were). So Mozart and Beethoven were played on a modern grand and that was all I knew about it. I don't keep too close an eye on these things but Beethoven on fortepiano seems to raise few eyebrows these days; in a 2010 review of one of Ronald Brautigam's sonata discs, Christopher Brodersen in Fanfare said "Although not the first pianist to use a period instrument to record the complete Beethoven sonatas (that honor belongs to Malcolm Binns on L’Oiseau-Lyre, circa 1977), Brautigam is the first to approach the music in such a way that the choice of a period instrument is no longer a novelty, or even the main attraction", so I guess that's about where we stand now. But, again going back to Classic CD, the whole notion of "historically informed practice" came as something of a surprise to me; I think the first time I paid serious attention to the idea was with Gardiner's Beethoven 9 (the "Froh, froh" section was on a cover disc), which would have been 1995 I suppose. Obviously period practice had been around for quite a while at this stage, but it was news to me, implying that it certainly wasn't the norm. These days you get complaints that Nobody's Allowed to play anything the "old-fashioned" way; if you try to conduct a Mozart symphony with more than forty players you'll be run out of town. Or something. True, there are some who will insist that Beethoven was most certainly writing for a modern grand (I know!) and thus should only be performed on same. To which all one can really say is "pfft". The music Olga Pashchenko plays here sounds perfectly at home on the instruments she's using.

3. Mendelssohn was a middle-class sentimentalist.

I'm not actually sure of the extent to which this idea was prevalent back in 1988 or subsequently, but I certainly picked it up from somewhere other than my own mind. Maybe it's just one of those myths that I only read in the context of being exploded; maybe in 1988 everyone knew Mendelssohn wasn't some overly genteel Victorian but still had to keep pointing out that he wasn't, sort of like nobody believes Vivaldi wrote the same concerto 400 times but there are people who still like to remind us that he didn't. Anyway, though I don't think I myself ever specifically dismissed Mendelssohn on these grounds, I never felt any particular need to explore his music; this was mostly because I'd group him with Brahms and Schumann as 19th-century composers I wasn't that keen on, but there was certainly some sense of his bad reputation preceding him. Too many wordless songs, doves' wings, and fairies. Anyway, listening to the Variations serieuses, especially on a fortepiano, should set things right. Aside: We were watching the recent Proms performance of the Beethoven 7 last night and the presenter did the usual thing of quoting Wagner's comment about it being the "apotheosis of the dance", which got me thinking about how there are certain "stock quotes" for classical music (yes, including Stravinsky's dig at Vivaldi). Yes, the Wagner quote is a nice one to throw in approvingly, but can we also pause and consider the fact that Wagner also said that Mendelssohn could never be a great composer on the simple grounds that he was a Jew, and if someone is capable of making that sort of asinine statement about music, why should we take him seriously as a commentator on the subject? (Insert smiley here to placate outraged Wagnerians).
4. Obscure composers have been forgotten for a reason.
Ah yes, the Canon. I do indeed believe that there's a canon of great composers and great works, but I also believe this canon to be the outcome of a democratic, if nebulous, election. Who are the great composers? Those who stand a reasonable chance of being mentioned when someone is asked "who are the great composers?" Certainly there are some—Bach, Mozart, Beethoven—who seem to have had a particular ability to appeal to a huge proportion of listeners, but the fact that we all have favourite composers that tend not to show up on these lists of the greats shows how ultimately futile such lists are. So Beethoven is definitely a Great Composer, and Jan Ladislav Dussek definitely isn't. And we can say this authoritatively because...? Recently Jerry Coyne asked (in the context of the recent JK Rowling Pseudonym Kerfuffle), "Imagine that Beethoven had never written his Fifth Symphony. But then, a few years ago, someone finds the score of that piece in a stack of old papers—written by someone other than Beethoven, say, one Gustav Biederstücker.  What would happen?... It should be recognized as a lost masterpiece. But it wouldn’t, because it was written by Biederstücker and not Beethoven. It would be ignored." Well, that got me thinking that if Beethoven hadn't written his Fifth Symphony then this would surely have had a knock-on effect in terms of Beethoven's posthumous reputation—one less symphony to intimidate Brahms or for Berlioz and Liszt to idolise; only 8 Beethoven symphonies and thus no "curse" associated with a 9th; and of course no "V for Victory" motto; different clichéd music required for certain situations... butterfly wings! butterfly wings! It's conceivable that the absence of Beethoven's Fifth from history would mean that the very definition of a "masterpiece" would be changed, on the grounds that this work of music itself laid the foundation for the things that became regarded as "great music" in the later 19th century. So we can say Dussek wasn't "as good" a composer as Beethoven but perhaps to some extent this is because "Beethoven" is actually part of the definition of a good composer. History written by the victors etc. (Which also reminds me tangentially of Joseph Heller's "Picture This": Homer couldn't have been the author of both the Iliad and the Odyssey because nobody could be that great an author... unless he was a genius on the order of Homer.). Hey, this also reminds me of something I wrote a few years ago about teaching newcomers to classical music using single-composer compilation albums: "The other controversial aspect is that your Bachs and Beethovens get equal time to your Telemanns and Hummels. But at least it offers a broader perspective on the world of music. It's more of a "listen without prejudice" approach. Possibly your pupil might mentally rewrite history if they're not, as it were, obliged to consider composer A to be more worthy than composer B." So let's put ourselves in the mind of the Fictional Total Novice who's listened to Olga Pashchenko's "Transitions" and heard music by Dussek, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn. They've never heard of any of these composers or their music. And we ask: which one of these was subsequently declared a godlike genius? Presumably they would reserve judgement until they'd heard more of each man's work. And then...?
5. Oh yes, one last preconception.
This one I thought was deader'n a dodo, but actually I'm not sure: That the major labels are your best option. Back in 1988, Naxos celebrated its 1st birthday; Chandos and Hyperion were less than a decade old. The vast majority of albums I bought before about 10 years ago were on major labels. But now it's quite the reverse. We see it in the Nereffid's Guide Awards each year; the majors (now, of course, down to 3) do win some awards but it's the indies who make by far the best showing. But I did a double-take recently when I read this in the digital magazine thingy Gramophone produced for its latest awards: "And once again, the difference between major company and independent is less discernible" (drawing attention to Beethoven symphonies on Glossa versus "1612 Vespers" on Decca). I'd say the mere existence of that Decca recording is newsworthy, certainly, but it's an outlier for the majors, who by the way got 17 out of the 66 nominations. Seems like the "difference" between majors and indies is that indies produce three-quarters of the best music. Now let me wheel around with a horrible journalistic manoeuvre and say something like "I don't know if Olga Paschenko's album will appear in next year's Gramophone Awards, but..."

And that's what I think about when I listen to "Transitions", the new album by young Russian pianist Olga Pashchenko, out now on the Fuga Libera label.

Newly heard: R Murray Schafer, etc

Pick of the last fortnight is the Molinari Quartet's second collection of string quartets by Canadian composer R Murray Schafer, whose 80th birthday is in a couple of weeks (ATMA). I remember several years back on eMusic people were urging me to listen to the first set (nos.1-7) but that was one of many things I never got round to. Now here's nos.8-12, written between 2000 and 2012. They're works with immediate appeal, and each quite different: 8 has some orientalisms in it; 9 makes use of a recording of a girl's voice singing an innocent tune, along with occasional interruptions from the sound of children playing; and the evocative 10, subtitled "Winter Birds", includes a brief recitation by the composer describing the snowy world of his farm in Ontario.

Rachel Barton Pine's "Violin Lullabies" (Cedille) could, in other hands, have been Classical Diabetes, but this is a genuinely lovely album. Her tone avoids the cloying sweetness we might associate with these sorts of pieces, and she makes use of various types of mute for half the works. And it's not just the usual suspects here - it opens with the Brahms but before we get to Gershwin's "Summertime" we hear music from Ysaye, Rebikov, Beach, Schwab, and Respighi. So it manages to be both a good "starter" album for parents and a bit of a byway exploration for us collector types.

Vox Luminis's new album (Ricercar) focuses on the music used for the funeral of Queen Mary, which was composed not just by Purcell but also by James Paisible, Thomas Tollett, and Thomas Morley; there are also other funeral works by Thomas Weelkes, Thomas Tomkins, and Purcell again (his Funeral Sentences were apparently not written for Queen Mary). This is music I know through the classic Winchester Cathedral recording, but obviously Vox Luminis's 16 voices bring a very different sound, which I must say I prefer.

Kimmo Hakola's guitar concerto takes medieval Spain, and specifically the Sephardic Jews, as its inspiration. If, like me, you already know his clarinet concerto and enjoy its klezmer influences, then this is probably recommendation enough to get the new recording from Timo Korhonen with the Oulu Symphony Orchestra under Santtu-Matias Rouvali (Ondine). For me, Hakola's work is the main event of the album, but there's also two substantial (at times, huge) pieces by Toshio Hosokawa, both of which are inspired in some way by the lotus; Blossoming II is for orchestra, while Voyage IX (Awakening) is a guitar concerto.

I'm gradually building up a picture of Erwin Schulhoff's music, and the second volume of piano works (mostly from the 1920s) on Grand Piano from Caroline Weichert reveals the influence of jazz and other popular music. It's by and large rather light stuff, though a great "whut the...?" moment comes with the Fünf Pittoresken of 1919; after a Foxtrot and a Ragtime, we're treated to a piece called In Futurum, which consists entirely of rests. An amiable disc, and it sounds well too. Grand Piano seems to have found a good niche for itself.

Andreas Staier's new album of harpsichord music is - well, that should be recommendation enough for a lot of people.  Anyway, it's called "Pour passer la Mélancolie" (Harmonia Mundi) and while it's not exactly a laff riot the music is far too interesting for us to dismiss it as generically gloomy. I find harpsichord recitals are heavily dependent on the sound of the instrument, and this one brings everything to life. The album grew on me each time I returned to it.

Finally, a special mention to the splendid cover disc on the most recent BBC Music Magazine, a 1973 Proms performance of Holst's Planets from Adrian Boult and the BBCSO. It was a Boult recording of the work that first introduced me to classical music so there's a wee bit of nostalgia attached, but it's a marvellous performance anyway. Plus it's accompanied by a more recent Proms performance, Paul Lewis in Beethoven's 1st piano concerto.

Every little helps...

So there's this online radio thing from Tesco called Blinkbox, which is, apparently, "the easiest way to listen to the music you already love, or discover new favourites - all for free". I'm not sure what I did to earn an email from them alerting me to the existence of Blinkbox but, hey, when you get an unsolicited email the first thing you should do is click on the link, right?

Well it looks like your standard online radio thing, so I decided to check out the Classical stations. A bunch of stuff there, though with prominence given to "Classical Crossover" and "Now Classical", which is to say excerpts from "Now that's what I call classical". Hmm, am I in their demographic? Ah, but there's one station called "Contemporary Classical" so I'll give that a go. 

I do like Janacek's Sinfonietta all right, but in what sense does music written by someone who died in 1928 count as "contemporary"? Also the absence of a credit for the performers is a black mark.

On screen there's a bunch of album covers and if I mouse over one I get the chance to create a station based on this album. So I try it with "The John Adams Earbox" and get... an excerpt from Berg's Wozzeck. Ah. Then something by Stockhausen. Then Britten's Simple Symphony. And now I'm listening to a bit of Mothertongue by Nico Muhly who at least has the virtue of being alive, even if this doesn't sound much like John Adams.

Shall we try another station? Oh, lets! How about "Classical Essentials"?

First up: "Spring" from The Four Seasons.

Newly heard: Ghetto Strings, etc.

Pianist Lara Downes's new album on the Steinway & Sons label is called "Exile's Cafe" and features music by 13 composers who were emigrés at some point in their lives. Along with Bartók, Chopin, Prokofiev, Martinu, Stravinsky, Rachmaninov, Weil, Korngold, and Milhaud we get less well known figures like William Grant Still, Paul Bowles, Michael Sahl, and Mohammed Fairouz. Actually I'm not sure if Still was ever an exile, but the music we hear is an extract from "Africa" so I guess that counts. So the album's a good mix of the familiar and unfamiliar (in my case, almost all of it was unfamiliar). As you might expect given the theme there's a general melancholic atmosphere, though in fact not all of the pieces were composed in exile (Korngold's Piano sonata no.2, for instance, of which we hear the first movement, was written when he was in his early teens). OK, so the concept might not be strictly rock-solid, but the project is definitely a success.

More Martinů in the form of the first volume of Toccata's series of Early orchestral works. The earliest piece is Village Feast from 1907 (he was 16), the latest from 22 years later (Prélude en forme de Scherzo) so I guess this is a fairly wide definition of "early" (all Mozart and Schubert works are "early" in that case!). These are all first recordings, from Ian Hobson and the Sinfonia Varsovia. I'm no Martinů expert but I'm comfortable with describing these works as "sounds like early Martinů", and there's plenty to enjoy. Indeed, if this were your first introduction to Martinů you'd probably be quite happy to then explore further.

From Le Miroir de Musique and Baptiste Romain comes "The Birth of the Violin" (Ricercar), a selection of music from the 15th and 16th centuries, ranging from Obrecht and Josquin to Willaert and Bassano. Essentially in most of the works the violin shows up as a substitute for a voice in a motet, madrigal or other vocal work, though there's also some dedicated instrumental music. There's an academic intent here, obviously, and the album may very well show up in my History of Classical Music through Recordings, but it's not merely academic, and the journey is a fascinating one.

And onwards to Monteverdi and The Sixteen's third and final disc of excerpts from Selva morale e spirituale. I suppose little needs to be said about this group's reliability in music of the period, and the previous volumes have had good enough reviews that when the dust settles this seems likely to be many people's top choice for the work. My innocent ears have no complaints, anyway, and I guess I'll have to go get the other two volumes now, won't I?

Finally, the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet give us four works on their new Innova release, "Thrum". The title piece is a laid-back set of three movements from David Evan Thomas - all four composers on the album were unfamiliar to me. Van Stiefel's Cinema Castenada is intended to evoke a scene of the performers gathered round a campfire, and it does have a meandering, improvisatory feel, with some vocalising for good measure. There are apparently lots of musical references in there that I haven't really picked up on. Gao Hong joins the quartet on pipa for his Guangxi Impressions, so you won't be surprised that it sounds rather Chinese. These are all enjoyable works, though the highlight for me is the opening Ghetto Strings, in which Daniel Bernard Roumain depicts (consecutively) "Harlem", "Liberty City", "Motor City", and "Haiti"; there's plenty of folk/popular music styles in here and all very evocative.

Newly heard: Russian accordions, and Spain rediscovered

In which the author attempts to revive the blog by posting briefly about the music he's been listening to over the past week.

When I was putting together my Top 20 of 2012 for Music is Good, I realised that part of the reason I didn't have a huge amount of 2012 releases to consider was that, because I based my purchases on magazine reviews, I was usually several months behind the times, and something I got "new" in, say, April had actually been released back in December. So, recently I said to myself, why don't I rely more on the New Releases list in IRR rather than waiting for reviews to come out, because actually a lot of the stuff I get, I get not because the review is good per se but simply because the review brings my attention to something that suits my tastes. The advice of reviewers tends to be useful mostly when considering repertoire choices. Thus, a New Era Dawns, and I look forward to being if not ahead of the curve, at least somewhere in the curve's vicinity. And hey, that means you might be too!

The Danish accordion duo Mythos have transcribed several Russian orchestral classics for their Orchid Classics release (link): Petrushka, In the Steppes of Central Asia, three bits from The Nutcracker, and Night on the Bare Mountain. The idea that this is merely a "novelty" release vanishes within a few seconds, because their version of the Stravinsky fits the music like a glove. You might easily convince the Hypothetical Naive Listener that Petrushka was originally written for accordion duo. The other pieces are perhaps more obviously transcriptions but I found it very easy to forget that I "should" be hearing an orchestra. Actually, come to think of it this is a genuine "novelty" release, in the sense that it's something brand new.

"Rediscovering Spain" is a collection of 16th- and 17th-century music from viola da gamba player Fahmi Alqhai and his ensemble Accademia del Piacere (Glossa: link). There's familiar tunes here - Gaspar Sanz's Canarios, Josquin's Mille regretz - but the "rediscovery" part of it is that these are "fantasías, diferencias and glosas", so what we're getting here is both old and new, with Alqhai getting composition/arrangement credit on many of the pieces. You get a full-bodied sound, tasteful percussion, and the occasional Middle Eastern tinge (Alqhai spent his first decade in Syria); there's also three vocal numbers. This album fits neatly on the same shelf as, say, Jordi Savall's "Ostinato" and Rolf Lislevand's "Diminuto".

Say that again, I dare you

We interrupt our ongoing torpor to bring you the news from Turkey that pianist/composer Fazil Say has been given a 10-month jail sentence for tweeting something that somebody decided somebody wouldn't like. The sentence was suspended unless he is naughty again in the next 5 years.

You can read the article in Hürriyet Daily News, which helpfully repeats the evil messages sent by Say so that you, too, can be offended.

Nereffid's Guide Awards 2012: Classical Albums of the Year

I'm delighted and to no small extent relieved to present the very sixth annual Nereffid's Guide Awards, a celebration of the best-reviewed classical releases of the year.

The awards are not one person's opinion, or the result of collective votes or discussions. Instead, I determine the winners by reading reviews from five print publications - Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, International Record Review, American Record Guide, and Fanfare - and several online sources, notably MusicWeb International, and assigning scores to each album based on those reviews. In each category, the album with the highest (weighted) average score wins; to complicate matters, bonus points are earned for accolades from various foreign-language sources. The finished product is an attempt to create some sort of objective summary of a wide range of subjective opinions.

Scroll down the page to see each award in turn, or click on the following links:

Medieval and 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

Note: Because of the lag between release date and the appearance of reviews, the awards cover albums released between August 2011 and July 2012 inclusive.

Considering the number of times the classical music recording industry has been declared dead over the years, it's a continued delight to see such excellence on display. My congratulations and thanks, as ever, to all the artists and labels who have entertained and moved us this past year. And thanks, too, to the critics, who may contradict each other a lot but, collectively, are a most valuable group of people.

Awards 2012 - Medieval & Renaissance

Richafort: Requiem and other sacred music

Cinquecento

Hyperion

"Musically inspired by Josquin, this is a majestic, expansive requiem. Its dark sonorities, measured tread and long-breathed lines, interlacing a web of references to music from the ancient and recent pasts, invoke melancholy reflections of the transience of things. Yet the shades of mourning are illuminated by moments of light and serenity—glimpses of a sublime hereafter." - Kate Bolton, BBC Music Magazine.
"Not only do the performances here range from genuine tenderness (Josquin's Nymphes, nappés literally stops you in your tracks, so sublimely moving is it) to majestic splendour (try the 'Sanctus' of the Requiem), but the balance is perfect and the melodic lines are absolutely clear, so that every detail of Richafort's remarkable contrapuntal writing can be heard... If I could nominate this recording as 'Outstanding' twice over, I would do so, for I have run out of superlatives. It is, quite simply, sublime." - Ivan Moody, International Record Review. 

Runners-up:

Victoria: Officium Defunctorum. Collegium Vocale Gent/Philippe Herreweghe [Phi]

Josquin: Missa De beata virgine; Missa Ave maris stella. Tallis Scholars/Peter Phillips [Gimell]

Parsons: Sacred music. The Cardinall's Musick/Andrew Carwood [Hyperion]

Ciconia: Opera omnia. La Morra; Diabolus in Musica [Ricercar]

This seemed quite a strong field this year. As usual Renaissance triumphs over Medieval, so it's nice to see Ciconia appearing among the runners-up. Our winners Cinquecento appeared in the 2009 shortlist with a recording of music by Vaet; this is the third time Hyperion has won this category. This year we also welcome the first appearance of Philippe Herreweghe's label Phi.

Awards 2012 - Baroque Instrumental

Vivaldi: La Cetra, op.9

Rachel Podger; Holland Baroque Society

Channel

"La cetra ('The Lyre') was published in Amsterdam in 1727, dedicated to the Austrian emperor, Charles VI... the set as a whole demonstrates Vivaldi's remarkable ability to find continually renewed inspiration in writing for solo violin with string orchestra... Podger plays with her customary beauty of tone, purity of tuning and lively variety of articulation. Her melodic decorations in the slow central movements give a delightfully unforced, spontaneous impression." - Duncan Druce, Gramophone.

"The musicians are truly engaged with the music... They clearly found a great deal of joy in recording thse concertos, and it's easy to hear. The fast passages are crisp and fiery—and really fast!—while slow passages come off with an easy, languid grace. Rachel Podger's playing is so good that it's transparent—you don't even notice it, and then when you do, you think it isn't possible. The music just is, and it's beautiful, and there aren't any bad notes to spoil it. Kind of like heaven." - Ardella Crawford, American Record Guide.

   

Runners-up:

Purcell: Twelve Sonatas of Three Parts. Retrospect Trio [Linn]

Milton and Peerson: "Sublime Discourses". Fretwork [Regent]

Vivaldi: Bassoon concertos, volume 2. Sergio Azzolini; L’Aura Soave Cremona/Diego Cantalupi [Naive]

Bach: Solo violin music. Amandine Beyer [Zig Zag Territoires]

More first appearances by labels: Regent and Zig Zag. The winners of this category over the years have—with the exception of last year's "Venezia" disc from the Rare Fruits Council—all been recordings of the three Baroque giants, Vivaldi, Handel, and JS Bach.