Our Choices

The BBC Music Magazine team’s current favourites

Oliver Condy Editor

Even ten years ago, it would be almost impossible to find a Chinese orchestra at Western standards. Today, there are a handful of fine ensembles all across China, including the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra. I was in Guangzhou in January for its concert of Bach transcriptions by Elgar, Stokowski and Respighi – a spectacular feast, brilliantly masterminded by the orchestra’s talented female conductor, Huan Jing. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor ‘I’ve just heard Dobrinka Tabakova’s (right) Cello Concerto on Radio 3,’ enthused my wife, coming home from work; ‘do you know it?’ ‘Of course!’ I replied, lying through my teeth while making a mental note to take a listen. And I’m glad I did.

Superbly performed on disc by

cellist Kristina Blaumane, it’s a captivating piece in which frenzied and folky outer movements are split by the central ‘Longing’, whose haunting stillness reminds me of Vasks or Pärt.

Rebecca Franks Managing editor

There are plenty of composer anniversaries I could happily let sail by, but Beethoven is another matter. His music is coming to the Desert Island with me. Radio 3 has embarked on a year-long ‘deep dive’ into his music, and I’m hooked. The opening Composer of the Week with conductor Marin Alsop and historian Simon Schama made a brilliant case for why Beethoven matters so much today. Michael Beek

Reviews editor

I caught the film Bel Canto the other day. Based on

Ann Patchett’s novel, it stars Julianne Moore as an opera soprano unwittingly caught up in a diplomatic crisis while performing a private recital at an embassy in South America. Renée Fleming provided the real voice behind the fictional ‘Roxanne Coss’, though I think Moore did a fairly convincing job of miming pieces by Dvoˇrák and Villa-lobos. Fleming also contributed vocals to the original score by David Majzlin. Freya Parr Editorial assistant

It’s awards season, so I’ve spent the month watching dozens of nominated films to place bets on which composers are going to snap up the top prizes. Although Marriage Story’s score left me a little cold, Adam Driver’s performance of the entirety of ‘Being Alive’ from Sondheim’s Company made me gasp and rub my hands with glee. I’ve been listening to the 2018 London cast recording ever since. It really is the greatest musical of all time. Try and fight me on that…