Music to my ears
What the classical world has been listening to this month
David Skinner Choral director One of my lockdown projects was to learn the Renaissance harp.
I’d been so inspired by Andrew Lawrence-king, who has been on a number of Alamire’s records, that I wanted to learn it myself. My favourite piece to play is ‘My Lady Carey’s Dompe’, written for Anne Boleyn’s eldest sister – it has a lovely ground bass and some nice twiddly bits on top – but I don’t play in front of anyone apart from my wife and the cat at present.
I also conduct the choir at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. It’s a fantastic choir and particularly adept at early music, because we sing a weekly Latin Vespers in addition to two Evensongs a week. Last year we really got into the composer Jheronimus Vinders; he’s a contemporary of Josquin and pretty much famous for this one tribute motet to Josquin. He’s never had a disc devoted to him, so we’ve recorded some wonderful masses and a number of Dutch and Latin songs.
My son has his own band called Cavetown and recently released his fourth album, Worm Food. It’s fantastic. As a Renaissance/latemedieval musician, I don’t know how to describe the pop genre, but it’s sort of everything – it’s creative and every song is very different. He’s one of these kids who learned the trade on cheap computer equipment in his bedroom at
13-14, and now he’s flying high. And also…
I’ve always enjoyed cooking a lot, but I’ve just fallen in love with the entire concept of an air fryer.
It might sound boring, but it has changed my life! Everything is so quick, it’s healthier, it’s crispier… Oyster mushrooms are stunning in it. You put them in whole with a light drizzle of olive oil and salt – they crisp up and are just amazing. Alamire’s ‘Byrd 1589’ collection is released on Inventa on 7 April Eva Ollikainen Conductor
I listen a lot to music from Denmark, where I live;
Finland, where I come from; and Iceland, where my main job is. Langgaard’s First Symphony is a remarkable work. He was 17 when he completed it and, while we can hear a lot of Richard Strauss and Wagner in it, it is so impressive that someone of that age could write this
55-minute work with huge orchestration. It’s also very thrilling. I find myself wondering why such an interesting composer isn’t played much.
Outi Tarkiainen’s The Earth, Spring’s Daughter is one of the most beautiful contemporary pieces I have heard recently.
It’s written for mezzo and chamber orchestra, and the text is a collage of poetry by Sami people. I don’t know any of the Sami languages yet, but even without understanding the words, the music is so touching, and also dramatic at times – like a contemporary Mahler. The mezzo Virpi Räisänen does an incredible job on her recording with the Lapland Chamber Orchestra.
In contrast to Langgaard’s huge symphony is the miniature intimacy of Kaldalóns’s Ave
Maria, as arranged and performed by Víkingur Ólafsson. It’s a lovely song written in around 1925, and Víkingur’s arrangement is
‘“My Lady Carey’s Dompe” has a lovely ground bass and some nice twiddly bits’
incredible – he plays on an old upright piano and the sound is so magical, with the instrument’s imperfections making it somehow even more interesting. Víkingur is one of my favourite artists and I always enjoy everything he plays, but this is even more special.
And also…
When I was working with students in Baltimore, I went to the George Peabody Library, which must be one of the most breathtaking in the world – as you enter it, the beauty is all-encompassing. It also made me think about libraries in general, and how fascinating it is that the books which originally filled the library would have led to further books being written, creating a chain of knowledge that carries on to this day.
Eva Ollikainen conducts the Iceland Symphony Orchestra on its UK tour, 20-28 April 2023
Boris Giltburg Pianist
I keep coming back to Mark Elder and the Hallé’s disc of Vaughan Williams featuring the Tallis Fantasia, Pastoral Symphony and Five Variants of ‘Dives and Lazarus’. In particular, there is a kind of ethereal beauty in the way that the Tallis Fantasia is presented. This is the best recording of it I have found. It’s the only one where I can really hear the so-called ‘organ’ effect when the string quartet comes in.
I recently experienced an amazing ‘documentary opera’ called Russia: Today by composer Eugene Birman. The text features verbatim accounts by Russians about what their country means to them. The piece is scored for five voices and structured like an Orthodox church service. The music is powerful, with some very imaginative uses of the human voice. I left Russia when I was five, and I love Russian music and literature – but I was unaware of feeling this almost molecular-level connection to the country.
I’ve been listening a lot to Beyoncé’s 2016 album Lemonade. It’s a really complex, multi-layered, fantastically performed work of art. The lyrics and the personal journey she goes through across the album are amazing, and the melodies, harmonies, vocals and arrangements are exquisite. It made me realise that there is so much that classical musicians can learn from pop music. This album has vision and experimentation
– it uses a broad range of musical expression to convey a very strong emotional message.
And also…
A while ago my passport was taken for visa processing, and I had to cancel some concerts. To get over the frustration, I learned to make ramen. I can now make quite a good bowl of miso ramen with ginger, garlic and chilli, plus vegetable stock and marinaded eggs. It takes time, but the explosion of flavour is worth it. Boris Giltburg’s recording of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concertos Nos 1 and 4 and Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini is released on the Naxos label in April