CALM RADIO - JOHANN STRAUSS II - Sampler

Five of the best Bach transcriptions

Elgar – Fantasia and Fugue in C minor

Elgar’s orchestration is magical, taking one of Bach’s most austere organ works and giving it a tender, nostalgic touch – the use of the harp in the Fantasia is divine, as is the lead into the fugue with plangent oboe… The fugue itself romps along from its opening strident strings to blasting brass. Elgar makes the fugal lines sing out, and adds wonderful cascading flourishes here and there alongside rasping trumpets and outrageous percussion scoring to add to the orchestral colour. Oliver Condy, editor

• Five essential works by JS Bach 

Camerata Brasil – Italian Concerto in F, BWV 971 - Allegro 

Camerata Brasil’s Bach in Brazil album provided the soundtrack to my summer in 2000, the year of its release. Here you have well-known JSB works combined with the choro, a Brazilian instrumental music style that dates back to the mid-19th century – instruments such as the mandolin, viola caipira and cavaquinho all join in the fun here.

Though ingenious arrangements of works such as the Double Violin Concerto in D minor and Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 all feature on the album, it’s the opening Italian Concerto in F that is, for me, the pick of the bunch. It’s all infectiously buoyant stuff, full of South American sunshine. Mix yourself a caipirinha, sit in the sun… and enjoy! Jeremy Pound, deputy editor

• The best recordings of Bach's Brandenburg concertos

August Stradal – Trio Sonata No. 4 BWV 528 – Andante

I loved everything about Vikingur Olafsson’s recent Bach disc for Deutsche Grammophon, and I clearly wasn’t alone as it was named Recording of the Year at our Awards. But there is one particular piece that I keep coming back to: August Stradal’s arrangement of the Andante from JS Bach’s Organ (or Trio) Sonata No. 4 in E minor.

I hadn’t come across the Bohemian musician before, but his thoughtful take on Bach seems to tap into its very essence. The music begins in a mood of resigned serenity that builds into something like majestic awe, as if the listener were walking around a deep, still lake to the foot of a towering mountain. It’s peaceful and profound. Rebecca Franks, managing editor

• The best recordings of JS Bach's well tempered clavier

Stokowski – Toccata and Fugue in D minor

Probably one of the most famous pieces of organ music in the world, Bach’s mighty Toccata and Fugue was transcribed for full orchestra in the 1920s by Leopold Stokowski. The result adds blood and thunder to what was already a spine-tingling piece of music.

Originally performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Stokowski’s arrangement came to prominence thanks to its use in the opening segment of Walt Disney’s Fantasia (1940). It accompanies live footage of the orchestra, illuminated by unusual patterns of light, followed by a section of rather abstract animation! Michael Beek, reviews editor

• Six of the best organs in the world

Brad Mehldau – After Bach

Bach is ripe territory for jazz musicians. A renowned improviser himself, Bach lends himself to the jazz form particularly well. Jazz pianist Brad Mehldau’s 2018 album After Bach responds directly to Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier: Mehldau performs four preludes and one fugue from the collection, interspersed with original compositions taking inspiration from each piece. He switches up tempos, puts things in jerky time signatures and takes the harmonies to unusual places.

Bach’s initial pieces become themes, and Mehldau’s variations. Garry Booth reviewed the album in the April 2018 issue of BBC Music Magazine, writing ‘the original compositions’ densely woven two-handed runs with bittersweet phrasings and accents are a richly satisfying counterpoint to the nuanced but respectful Bach pieces’. Enough said, really. Freya Parr, editorial assistant

A guide to the music of BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing

The music for the opening credits of BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing was written by Dan McGrath and Josh Phillips, the composing duo also responsible for the theme tunes for Take Me Out, A League of Their Own, All Star Mr & Mrs and Alan Carr: Chatty Man. 

The theme tune is written in a catchy Latin style and is split into four main sections: an introduction, a verse, a chorus and an ending. Because the theme is used over the top of a visual sequence introducing all the contestants, it is a lot longer than most other TV opening credits. As a result, McGrath and Phillips were able to slow down the tempo and do more with it, as they explain here:

‘We thought Latin was the way to go because it’s such an exciting, vibrant style, and it wasn’t going to become tiresome,’ says Dan McGrath. ‘It gave us scope to give it a top line without having a vocal,’ adds Josh Phillips. The top line is played by the brass section.

Some of the other programmes McGrath and Phillips have written for:

Take Me Out

A League of Their Own

All Star Mr & Mrs

Alan Carr: Chatty Man

What is the music in Series 3 of Stranger Things?

Netflix’s hit fantasy drama Stranger Things reaches operatic new heights in the sixth chapter of its recently released third series. 

The eagle-eared among you may have noticed the producers plumping for a bit of Philip Glass to underscore the episode’s final scenes, forgoing the usual (and brilliant) original score by Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein. 

• Article: A guide to the soundtrack of BBC's Poldark

That said, the show often brings in period (ie ’80s tunes) at key moments.

Though not from the ’80s, music from Act II of Glass’s opera Satyagraha (2001) added a curious dramatic sheen to scenes both apocalyptic and grizzly.

It was a key moment in the story, as the psychic young hero ‘L’ used her power to discover the hiding place of the hideous ‘Mind Flayer’ (a creature born of a parallel world known as ‘The Upside Down’).

The recording, featuring New York City Opera, was front and centre in the action and continued right through the credits.

Michael Morpurgo story to be set to music by Rachel Portman in BBC TV adaptation

Celebrated children’s writer Michael Morpurgo and award-winning composer Rachel Portman have teamed up for a special animated TV adaptation of Morpurgo’s Mimi and the Mountain Dragon, due to air on BBC One this winter.  

Rachel Portman is primarily known as a film composer, having written Oscar-nominated scores for The Cider House Rules in 1999 and Chocolat in 2000. She also became the first female composer ever to win an Academy Award, which she received for her score for Emma.

Portman has also written music for television and theatre, as well as a large selection of stage and concert works. She is no stranger to literary adaptations - her opera, The Little Prince, received its premiere with Houston Grand Opera, based on the novella of the same name by Saint-Exupéry. 

Portman’s score will be paired with a script by Welsh poet Owen Sheers, and illustrations by Emily Gravett. Portman and Sheers have collaborated before. They were commissioned for the BBC Proms in 2017 to write The Water Diviner’s Tale, a dramatic choral symphony exploring issues of climate change. Morpurgo and Portman have worked together too, writing the Christmas carol 'We Were There' in 2014 for the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Youth Chorus.

Morpurgo’s story concerns Mimi, a shy girl whose village is terrorised by the Mountain Dragon. Mimi then finds a baby dragon asleep in her family woodshed. Despite a perilous blizzard, she travels through the night to return the baby dragon to her mother the Mountain Dragon. Morpurgo took inspiration from the Engadine Valley in Switzerland. 'I saw children in red hats, cracking whips, ringing cowbells, banging drums, creating a great cacophony of noise, as they paraded up through the village,' says Morpurgo. 'They are driving away wicked spirits, I was told. So began my story of Mimi and the Mountain Dragon'.

Free Download: Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra

This week’s free download is the second movement, Un Bal, from Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, performed by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, conducted by Andrew Davis. It was recorded on Chandos and was awarded four stars in the September issue of BBC Music Magazine.

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Welsh National Opera appoints first female conductor in residence

A new role has been created at Welsh National Opera: female conductor in residence. This follows an open call earlier this year for aspiring female conductors, as part of WNO’s programme to work towards gender equality within the industry. Tianyi Lu has been appointed the residency's first recipient.

Born in Shanghai and raised in New Zealand, Tinayi Lu came to the attention of WNO in 2016 when she worked with the Youth and Community team on WNO Youth Opera’s production of Peter Maxwell Davies’s Kommilitonen!. She completed a Masters in Orchestral Conducting at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, after having studied in Auckland and Melbourne. 

• The best living female conductors

WNO’s conductor Carlo Rizzi described Lu as having ‘great musicality with a natural charisma on the podium’. Lu currently holds roles as assistant conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and principal conductor of the St Woolos Sinfonia in Newport, having previously been the Dudamel Fellow with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in 2017/18.

Lu’s new role will begin this month, working closely with WNO’s music director Tomáš Hanus and the WNO Orchestra in the company’s main opera season, as well as youth and community projects. She will aid the music team on a productions of Verdi's Rigoletto and Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen, before starting work as assistant conductor of Bizet's Carmen. She will also be mentored by conductor Alice Farnham, who was curator of WNO’s symposium on women in music in 2018, which was responsible for the creation of this role. 

• Six of the most inspiring women in music

Five essential works by Monteverdi

Vespers

Pomp and splendour are the abiding impressions left by this collection of music, which uses a variety of theatrical effects from its very opening fanfare onwards. 

Recommended recording:
Gabrieli Consort & Players/Paul McCreesh
Archiv 477 6147

• Claudio Monteverdi

Madrigals, Book 5

He became more and more daring in his madrigals, giving increasing importance to the words and their meaning which he underscored with daring dissonances.

Recommended recording:
Concerto Italiano/Rinaldo Alessandrini
Naïve OP 30445

• The best recordings of Monteverdi

Il Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda

The first audience of this work – neither quite madrigal nor opera – is said to have been reduced to tears by its expressiveness in depicting the central duel.

Recommended recording:
Rolando Villazón, Patrizia Ciofi; Le Concert d’Astrée/Emmanuelle Haïm
Virgin 363 3502

Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria

Ulysses returns from the Trojan Wars and must prove himself in a contest to win back his wife Penelope. 

Recommended recording:
Christoph Prégardien, Bernarda Fink; Concerto Vocale/René Jacobs
Harmonia Mundi HML 5901427-9

• Six of the best operas about Roman leaders

Coronation of Poppea

Monteverdi’s last and greatest opera ends with a sensual duet between the immoral Nero and his mistress Poppea.

Recommended recording:
Sylvia McNair, Anne Sofie von Otter; English Baroque Soloists/John Eliot Gardiner
Archiv 447 0882

• Six of the best opera baddies

Six of the best… works by Lili Boulanger

Faust et Hélène (1913)

Based on a poem by Eugène Adenis – itself based on Goethe’s Faust – Boulanger crafted a thirty-minute cantata for choir and orchestra, featuring solo parts for mezzo-soprano, tenor and baritone. The work won her the 1913 Prix de Rome, the first time the prize had been awarded to a woman composer. She is said to have written it in just four weeks.

Du fond de l’abîme (1914-17)

This ambitious work, based on Psalm 130, was on Boulanger’s writing desk for a long while, largely thanks to the outbreak of war. During the war years, the composer volunteered for the Franco-American Committee; she also became quite ill during this period. The work is arranged for contralto, tenor, chorus, organ and orchestra.

• 9 of the best contemporary female composers
• 5 of the best works by Clara Schumann

Vieille Prière Bouddhique (1914-17)

Another work which Boulanger had to find time to return to during the war years was her take on a Buddhist prayer (indeed ‘a daily prayer for the whole universe’). An intensely spiritual work, it remains one of the composer’s greatest accomplishments and sits in quite stark contrast to the more nihilistic Du fond de l’abîme of the same period.

La princesse Maleine (1916-18)

The writer Maurice Maeterlinck was no stranger to his works being taken on by composers; the most famous example might be Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. Maeterlinck’s La princesse Maleine, however, was one piece he was quite protective of. The only composer he allowed to take it on was Lili Boulanger. It’s said she identified greatly with Maleine, but progress on the five-act opera was slow and she struggled to complete the work. Only fragments of it remain, which leads most scholars to believe it went unfinished.

• Six of the most inspiring women in music
• Nine of the best classical works inspired by the sun

D’un soir triste / D’un matin de printemps (1917-18)

This two-part work was completed just a couple of months before her death in 1918, the first half being the moving portrait D’un soir triste (Of a sad evening). Boulanger originally arranged the piece for cello and piano. The second half, D’un matin de printemps (Of a spring morning), is the sprightlier of the two works that make up this musical diptych, and was originally arranged for flute/violin and piano. Both halves were also arranged for piano trio and orchestra.

Pie Jesu (1918)

Her final work, the Pie Jesu is a deeply emotional and personal work that is in many ways her own Requiem. So unwell was she while working on the music, she actually finished it on her deathbed, dictating what was required to her sister. Nadia Boulanger is said to have been so distraught at Lili’s death, she turned her back on her own composing and decided to focus on teaching instead.

• 5 composers with synesthesia
• The best recordings of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue

An introduction to Shostakovich's Symphony No. 3

Symphony No. 3 ‘May Day’ Op. 20 (1929)

Premiered: Leningrad, 1930

The Third Symphony (which he also discouraged Maxim from conducting) is titled ‘May Day’, but its effect is ironic rather than rousing. At the time Shostakovich wrote this, he was newly married, and simply needed the money. But it turned out to be an opportunity to see how much grotesque satire his audience could recognise. 

‘The Second and Third symphonies are very difficult to perform properly and it took me a long time to work out how to make them feel logical. They need to settle in your mind. By the Third you feel he’s really starting to be very ironic about the text and about the message. The poetry he uses is banal, amateur, and he’s mocking it – showing how absurd and empty the words were.’

• Five of the best Shostakovich conductors

Vasily Petrenko is, like Shostakovich, a son of Leningrad/St Petersburg, and grew up singing the composer’s songs in its Capella Boys Music School. In 1997 he won first prize in the Shostakovich Choral Conducting Competition and was made chief conductor of the St Petersburg State Academic Symphony Orchestra, during which time he took on the principal conductorship of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.

On his arrival in the city in 2006, at just 30, he launched a project with Naxos to record all Shostakovich’s 15 symphonies. The series has drawn international acclaim and, as the final instalment is released, he looks back on his nine-year journey. ‘To work with an orchestra on one composer for so many years has meant we could build a style, an approach to his language,’ he says. ‘At first, it felt like an exhilarating challenge: there are huge demands. Now, we are of one mind.’ 

• 11 important Shostakovich quotes

Petrenko, born a year after the composer’s death, grew up in the Soviet Union. A beneficiary of its uniquely rigorous teaching system, he witnessed its dissolution when he was 15, the re-writing of history books, and even the emergence of a nostalgia for that dark era. He’s in touch with those who remember Shostakovich, and the times through which he lived, but has experienced the Western view of this controversial figure.

‘When I conduct these symphonies in Russia, there’s still an unspoken understanding of the songs, the messages. We talk more about the composer’s personal life. When I conduct in the West, it’s important to give the historical context. There’s still so much we don’t know; the family destroyed many letters when Shostakovich died. The State would probably have requisitioned them anyway.’ 

• The politics of Dmitri Shostakovich

A guide to the soundtrack of BBC’s Poldark

The main theme for BBC’s period drama Poldark is written by British composer Anne Dudley, who has also written music for TV programmes and films including Jeeves and Wooster, The Hustle, Mamma Mia – Here We Go Again and The Full Monty, for which she won an Oscar for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score. She also worked as music producer on the film adaptation of Les Miserables, starring Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman.

As well as her work for screen, she is known as one of the founding members of the synthpop band Art of Noise, and was the BBC Concert Orchestra’s first Composer in Association in 2001.

• Inspector Morse: five of the best musical moments
• The best scores for natural history programmes

The main theme in Poldark uses modes, often found in the folk music from Cornwall, where the programme is set. It features a solo violin set over a magnificent orchestral accompaniment, performed by the Chamber Orchestra of London. 

‘The music needed to underscore the sweeping Cornish landscapes and passionate love story,' says Dudley. 

Pianist Lang Lang has performed a solo piano arrangement of this opening theme, a recording that features on the album below:

• Six of the best Lang Lang performances
• What's the music on the BBC's Wimbledon TV coverage?

Seasons 1-5 of Poldark can be viewed here.