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Write to: The editor, BBC Music Magazine, Tower House, Fairfax Street, Bristol, BS1 3BN Email: music@classical-music.com
Man about the Strauss
Christopher Dingle remarks about Sir John Barbirolli (Reviews, June) that Richard Strauss’s Death and Transfiguration was ‘far from central to his repertoire’. Not that far, perhaps. He gave a memorable Ein Heldenleben with the LSO at the Royal Festival Hall in September 1969 and recorded it soon after, and recorded Metamorphosen
and performed a suite from Der Rosenkavalier at the Proms. There is also a touching story about when he died in July 1970. The news of his death reached the LSO the following morning as they were recording Mahler’s Third
Symphony with Jascha Horenstein. There was an afternoon session, and the work recorded by the
same forces was Death
and Transfiguration.
Peter Phillips, Swansea
A Clara celebration
Commemorating 200 years after being born is a great reason for celebrating the life and works of Clara Schumann (June, cover). Bravo to all who are bringing out her exceptional achievements this year. In 1996, for the 100th anniversary of her death, my Ambache Chamber Orchestra recorded her Konzertsatz of 1847 for BBC Music Magazine’s cover CD. The work was intended as a birthday gift to Robert, and makes an interesting contrast to the brilliant, teenage A minor Concerto – from a mature 28 year-old, this music has her hallmark expression of noble melancholy. BBC Music also deserves appreciation for that CD being devoted to women at a time when there was less inclusion: the other composers on it were Louise Farrenc, Fanny Mendelssohn and
Marie Grandval, names now more in people’s consciousness. Diana Ambache, London
A Little appreciation
Though Tasmin Little’s many fans will miss her exquisite music-making when she retires next year, a look at Twitter does indeed confirm her description of a musician’s life as ‘full on’ (BBC Music Magazine Awards, May issue). For example,
Steven Isserlis records his almost constant travelling, which is made even more arduous by airline officials losing his cello reservation and mistaking him for violinist André Rieu. Only love of music makes the life bearable, and I’ve been fortunate to share Tasmin’s at many concerts: crystalline Bruch, commanding Elgar and the secret, enchanted places within her beloved Delius. I can’t wait to see what new pleasures she brings us in her next career. James Dixon, Suffolk
Gratefully received
How great to hear my great aunt Mary Plumstead’s song
A Grateful Heart as one of the tracks on your May issue Panis Angelicus CD. Thank you! She wrote a considerable number of songs over a 50-year period, mostly in a miniaturist style and never failing to treat the words so naturally to fit her music – almost conversational, yet deeply felt. They are most rewarding to sing. She lived most of her working life in Cornwall, and died in 1980. It seems a shame that more of her work is not better known. In her lifetime several of the country’s leading singers performed, broadcast or recorded her songs, among them Kathleen Ferrier, Owen Brannigan, Norma Procter, Janet Baker and Brian Rayner Cook. A Grateful Heart is still a favourite with church choirs and soloists. In case readers are interested, I have recently arranged to deposit a number of her original scores in the
archives at the Royal Academy of Music, where she studied. Geoff Anderson, Hungerford
Treble top
I was very interested to read in the May issue (On your Cover CD) about the singer Laurence Kilsby. Having heard him sing many years ago at a prechristmas BBC programme from the Royal Albert Hall, introduced by Aled Jones, I was greatly impressed with his voice. Sadly, although I recorded that broadcast it has since disappeared from my collection. Are there any CDS of Laurence singing as a treble? John Wilson, Bristol
The editor replies: Laurence Kilsby sang solos on several discs when he was a chorister in the Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum. These include Mozart’s ‘Coronation’ Mass in C (Delphian DCD34102) and Songbook, a disc of shorter choral works (Delphian DCD34097 ). He can also be heard on the Gabrieli Consort’s recording of Handel’s L’allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato (Signum SIGCD392).
Dreamy rivers
Like your correspondent Allen Edelstein (Letters, June), I heard nobody to remotely compare with Paul Robeson singing
Ol’ Man River. That is, until I came across saxophonist Albert Ayler some 40 years ago. His interpretation, though of course totally different, also gets to the very heart of this wonderful song. Frank Taylor, Northampton
Open access
When Way Out West, your feature about the US Transcontinental Railroad (May), gets onto the subject of the soprano Adelina Patti, we are told that ‘she opened the blinds to show off her sumptuous quarters’. I have seen photographs of Patti and know she was an exhibitionist, but isn’t this going a bit far? Stan Abrahams, Ditchling
Defending Grofe
In his Building a Library feature on Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F (April), Mervyn Cooke declares that, ‘to be fair, the infectious jazziness of the original version (of Rhapsody in Blue) as premiered by (Paul) Whiteman’s own band later became dulled by the overinflated arrangement for full symphony orchestra prepared by Ferde Grofe.’ However, it would also only be fair to mention that it was Grofe who had prepared that infectiously jazzy orchestration for Whiteman’s men to play at the Rhapsody’s Aeolian Hall premiere. Gershwin composed his Rhapsody in Blue at white heat in less than a month.
With the concert date fast approaching, Whiteman had to hand the Rhapsody’s wet-ink pages to his reliable orchestrator Grofe as fast as Gershwin could write them. Even so, come the day of the premiere, there were a few blank pages on the Whiteman band’s music stands which were designated to be filled by the composer-pianist’s improvisations. Grofe, of course, would later find his greatest fame orchestrating his own Grand Canyon Suite. Preston Neal Jones,
Hollywood, CA, US