Gramophone Classical Music Podcast

Eloquence has just issued two box sets, 'Paul Paray: The Mercury Masters', 45 CDs in all, which gather together the recordings made for Mercury between 1953 and 1962. The French conductor (1886-1979) created a magnificent ensemble during his ten years as the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's Music Director, and their partnership became one of the cornerstones of the Mercury Living Presence catalogue. Rob Cowan, Gramophone's expert on archive recordings, spoke to James Jolly for this podcast about the recordings and Paray's very special art.

Gramophone's Orchestra of the Year Award is the only prize voted on by readers. To help you choose this year's winner, James Jolly spoke to two of Gramophone's regular contributors about five orchestras each, and in this second of two podcasts, Andrew Mellor gives his perspective on ensembles from Hungary, France, Norway, the UK and one that draws its players for over 40 different nationalities. The Orchestra of the Year Award is presented in association with Apple Music.

Gramophone's Orchestra of the Year Award is the only prize voted on by music lovers, and to help you decide on 2022's ensemble, James Jolly spoke to two of our regular contributors about five orchestras each. In the first of two episodes, Rob Cowan gives his perspective on ensembles from Austria, the Czech Republic, England, the USA and Germany. The Orchestra of the Year Award is presented in association with Apple Music, and you can listen to complete recordings of the works discussed in the special lossless playlist at our website.

Nico Muhly's Stranger, premiered in 2020, gives its name to a new album from Avie featuring the tenor Nicholas Phan. The album also includes two earlier works, Muhly's Lorne ys my likinge, written as a companion piece to Benjamin Britten's Abraham and Isaac and similarly scored for countertenor, tenor and piano (for which Phan is joined by countertenor Reginald Mobley and pianist Lisa Kaplan), and Impossible Things, setting poems by CP Cavafy, and featuring a solo violin and ensemble: on the new recording, The Knights, conducted by Eric Jacobsen with Colin Jacobsen taking the solo violin role. James Jolly caught up by video call with Nicholas Phan in San Francisco and Nico Muhly in New York to talk about the album, and how Stranger came into being.

Andrew Mellor is a former Gramophone Reviews Editor who now lives in Denmark where he pursues a career as a freelance journalist with a special focus on things Nordic, and he's still very much part of the Gramophone family as a regular contributor to the magazine. James Jolly caught up with him recently to talk about his new book, The Northern Silence, his passion for Nordic culture and the differences between the various countries he writes about. The Northern Silence is published by Yale University Press, and is just out. The recording of Sibelius's Tapiola is by the Helsinki PO and Leif Segerstam (Ondine).

Alexander Ullman's new album featuring Liszt's Piano Concertos Nos 1 and 2 and the Sonata in B Minor, is released today on Rubicon Classics. The Award-winning pianist joined Gramophone's Editor Martin Cullingford to explore this extraordinary music, its beauty and its challenges.

The Canadian violinist James Ehnes has his own string quartet for which he's joined by fellow violinist Amy Schwarz Moretti, viola-player Richard Yongjae O'Neill and cellist Edward Arron, and they've released the final instalment in their series of recordings for Onyx of the Op 74 and 95 quartets and all the late quartets. Their final volume includes the A minor, Op 132 and the F major, Op 135. James Jolly caught up with James Ehnes by video call in Bergen, where he was recording the Nielsen Violin Concerto with Edward Gardner and the Bergen Philharmonic, to talk about how he formed the quartet, and their journey through the quartets of Beethoven.

This week's guest is Bridget Cunningham, Artist Director of London Early Opera, who joins Editor Martin Cullingford to talk about her new recording - Caio Fabbricio, a pasticcio opera by Handel, newly available on Signum. But what exactly is a pasticcio opera, and what role does the music of Hasse play in the work? Join us as we step into 18th century London musical life to find out the answers...

Anne-Sophie Mutter premiered John Williams's Second Violin Concerto, written for her, in Boston in July 2021 and DG recorded the work shortly after. One of the most listened-to composers on the planet, thanks to his peerless film scores, Williams has long been drawn the concerto as a form, and has written for many great musicians, including Gil Shaham and Yo-Yo Ma. James Jolly caught up with John Williams by phone earlier this year to talk about the new violin concerto, Williams's concert music and his love of conducting. John Williams features on the cover of the July issue of Gramophone, out on June 10. Andrew Farach-Colton writes about Williams's concert music and we review the new DG recording of the Second Violin Concerto as well as Yo-Yo Ma's new Sony Classical recording of the revised version of John Williams's Cello Concerto.

Helen Charlston has recorded her first entirely solo album for Delphian, for which she was joined by the theorbo player Toby Carr. 'Battle Cry: She Speaks' combines music of the 17th century with a new work written for her by Owain Park, 'Battle Cry', which gives the album its title. James Jolly caught up with her to talk about the album and find out about what's coming up from this much sought-after young singer. A BBC New Generation artist, Helen won First Prize in the 2018 Handel Singing Competition and was a Rising Star of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment for 2017-19. Her first album for Delphian, mainly of duets with her soon-to-be-husband Michael Craddock, was 'The Isolation Songbook', warmly welcomed by Gramophone's Alexandra Coghlan who wrote that 'the results are varied, from comic miniatures to distilled dramas and contemplative outpourings, but together add up to a recital that's hard to resist, at once fresh and profoundly familiar'.