Gramophone Classical Music Podcast

In this week's Gramophone Podcast we meet with Swedish violinist Johan Dalene, a former Gramophone Young Artist of the Year. He joins Editor Martin Cullingford to talk about his new release on the BIS label, 'Stained Glass', recorded with pianist Christian Ihle Hadland – a beautifully-performed programme of Ravel, Prokofiev, Pärt, Bacewicz and Boulanger.

In this special edition of the Gramophone Podcast, we explore the full list of winners from this year's Gramophone Classical Music Awards. Editor-in-Chief James Jolly, Editor Martin Cullingford and Deputy Editor Tim Parry talk through the Category Winners, the Special Awards, and of course the new Recording of the Year - complete with excerpts of every album.

The complete piano trios of Dvořák is the topic this week, as Editor Martin Cullingford catches up with pianist Boris Giltburg, violinist Veronika Jarůšková and the cellist Petre Jarůšek, who have just recorded them for Supraphon.

Jeremy Eichler's new book, Time's Echo, just out from Faber (HB; £25) tangles with memory – what we choose to remember, what to forget – as history takes hold, and he argues that music can become in many ways the most powerful form of memorial. To illustrate this argument, he engages with works by Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg, Dmitri Shostakovich and Benjamin Britten. James Jolly caught up with him recently to talk about the book. The musical excerpts which appear on the podcast, with kind permission, are: Shostakovich Symphony No 13, 'Babi Yar' Nikita Storojev; CBSO & Choir / Okko Kamu (Chandos) Schoenberg A Survivor or from Warsaw Franz Mazura; CBSO & Chorus / Simon Rattle (Warner Classics) R Strauss Metamorphosen Sinfonia of London / John Wilson (Chandos) Britten War Requiem Soloists; Choristers of St Paul's Cathedral; LSO & Chorus / Richard Hickox (Chandos) This Gramophone Podcast is published in association with Wigmore Hall. Visit Wigmore Hall's webite for full details of this week's events.

The conductor William Vann discusses his superb new Chandos Records release of Parry's Prometheus Unbound, Gramophone's Recording of the Month, with Editor Martin Cullingford.

In a series of four Decca Icons podcasts, Gramophone's James Jolly explores the artistry of four major recording musicians with Rob Cowan, Jed Distler and Richard Fairman. Focusing on recordings in the Decca catalogue, the series turns the spotlight on Bernard Haitink, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Georg Solti and, this week, Benjamin Britten. Each podcast is accompanied by a special Apple Music playlist. In this final podcast, James talks to the Financial Times and Gramophone critic Richard Fairman about this towering figure in British musical life. Britten recorded for Decca, as composer, pianist and conductor, for most of his adult life and left a peerless catalogue of recordings, including one of the classics of the gramophone, the War Requiem.

The latest in our series of composer podcasts focusses on Dmitri Shostakovich. Edward Seckerson joins Gramophone Editor Martin Cullingford to share his insights with us into one of the greatest of 20th-century musical figures, with a particular focus on his extraordinary symphonies and what they reveal about his life.

In this third in our series of Decca Icons podcasts, James talks to the critic and broadcaster Rob Cowan about the Hungarian-born Sir Georg Solti who made his first recording for Decca in 1947 and remained a Decca artist until his death in 1997, leaving an extraordinary recorded legacy. The podcast is accompanied by a special Apple Music playlist which you can find at Gramophone's website.

Jennifer Higdon wrote her Concerto for Orchestra for the Philadelphia Orchestra and its then-Music Director Wolfgang Sawallisch who gave the work its premiere in 2002. Since then it's been recorded by the Atlanta Symphony and, on a new Naxos album just out, by the Houston Symphony - both conducted by Robert Spano. The new recording finds the Concerto for Orchestra joined by a much newer work, Higdon's double percussion concerto, Duo Duel (2020), played by the artists who commissioned it, Svet Stoyanov and Matthew Strauss. James Jolly caught up with Jennifer Higdon to talk about the two works' beginnings, and about how the composer manages her amazingly busy schedule. This week's podcast is produced in association with the Lake George Music Festival where you can enjoy classical music among some of America's most spectacular scenery. Visit lakegeorgemusicfestival.com to find out more.

Rachel Barton Pine's new album pairs Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No 1 with a new work by Earl Maneein called Dependent Arising, a heavy metal-influenced concerto written especially for her. In this week's Gramophone Podcast the violinist tells Editor Martin Cullingford about the recording, and explores some of the links between the two genres of music, classical and heavy metal. The album - called Dependent Arising - is available from Cedille.