The Ultimate Classic FM Hall of Fame E-Book

Darren Henley

• Herausgeber: Elliott & Thompson
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 435

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

The Ultimate Classic FM Hall of Fame celebrates classical music's unique ability to stir the emotions of a listener - whether it's the haunting melodies of Górecki'sSymphony of Sorrowful Songs or Purcell'sDido and Aeneas; the passionately charged opening bars of Beethoven'sSymphony No. 5; dramatic operas such as Puccini'sLa bohème; the moving sounds of Rachmaninov'sPiano Concerto No. 2 and Mozart'sClarinet Concerto; beautiful ballet scores from Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky; or blockbuster film soundtracks composed by John Williams and Howard Shore.This new edition of theSunday Times bestseller celebrates the twentieth anniversary of the Classic FM Hall of Fame. With a fully updated chart of the nation's 300 favourite works, based on votes cast by millions of listeners over the past twenty years, a revised introduction and beautiful new illustrations, this definitive collection encompasses a rich variety of classical greats, contemporary masters, lesser-known treasures and outstanding British composers to provide a fascinating insight into our relationship with the music we love.Darren Henley, Sam Jackson and Tim Lihoreau guide us through the world of classical music and the people responsible for creating and performing it. Combining fascinating histories and biographies, recommended recordings and the ranking of the 300 pieces themselves, this book is as relevant to a new listener discovering the joys of classical music as it is to long-time lovers of the genre.The Ultimate Classic FM Hall of Fame is a beautifully illustrated testament to the enduring power of classical music to inspire, entertain, relax and invigorate us.

Leseprobe

Contents

Introduction

A Word about Classic FM

The Top 300 Chart

The Classic FM Hall of Fame

25 Recordings You Should Own

Acknowledgements

About the Authors

Index

Introduction

Back in 1996, when the Classic FM Hall of Fame launched, no one could have predicted the extraordinary popularity and longevity of this countdown. Two decades later, and the world’s biggest annual survey of classical music tastes is more diverse, more surprising and more popular than ever, with over three million votes having been cast in the last twenty years.

The voting process is a very simple one: at the start of every calendar year, we invite our listeners to tell us their three favourite pieces of classical music – online at ClassicFM.com, over the phone or by good old-fashioned snail mail. Three points are assigned to each first choice; two to the second; and one to the third. And from that, we collate a chart of 300 pieces of classical music, spanning over 500 years, which we reveal across the Easter weekend. The process of fitting all 300 choices into a forty-eight-hour period, whilst also taking account of hourly news bulletins, commercial breaks and presenter commentary, is a Herculean task – and our team of producers always breathe a happy sigh of relief when we reach 9 p.m. on Easter Monday.

When we passed the fifteen-year milestone, we published the first book about our chart. Called simply The Classic FM Hall of Fame, it outlined an aggregated top 300, from 1996 through to 2000 – and it proved extremely popular, selling over 20,000 copies within the first few months of publication. Now, with two decades of Classic FM Halls of Fame behind us, we thought it timely to provide an updated and refreshed book, which will hopefully be an even more rewarding read than the first version.

The 300 pieces covered here mirror The Ultimate Classic FM Hall of Fame, which we revealed on-air in August 2015. And in case you’re wondering how a chart that started in 1996 could celebrate its twentieth anniversary in 2015, not 2016, it’s simply because that is the year in which the twentieth Classic FM Hall of Fame occurred. We took the annual top 300 from 1996 to 2015 and created a new chart, based on each work’s relative position in the twenty countdowns. That means that all the works that have seen their popularity ebb and flow over the two decades since the Classic FM Hall of Fame began, receive a chart position based on their achievements over the full period. New works entering the Classic FM Hall of Fame in more recent years – in many cases because they were only written in the last decade or so – are more likely to appear further down, because they don’t benefit from listeners’ votes in the early years of the countdown.

During the first five years of our chart, one composer reigned supreme: Max Bruch. In 1996, he surprised all of us by beating the likes of Mozart and Beethoven to take the Number 1 spot with his Violin Concerto No. 1. At Number 300 the same year was another work by Bruch, Kol Nidrei. So a lesser-known composer, born in Cologne in 1838, not only topped but tailed our debut chart. That Bruch found himself at the top was all the more remarkable when you consider that by the time he died in 1920, his music had drifted out of fashion to such an extent that his reputation had dwindled to almost nothing. It also proves that looks count for very little with Classic FM listeners: a German contemporary of Bruch once said of him, ‘In personal appearance, he is by no means as majestic as one would suppose from his works.’

Bruch maintained his place in pole position a further four times, confounding the pundits who claimed that his early success was merely a fluke. But, in 2001, Classic FM’s listeners voted Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 into the top spot. Forever linked to that classic romantic movie moment on a railway platform in the film Brief Encounter, the work also enjoyed five years at the peak of the chart through until 2005. Prior to this piece’s spell at the top, Rachmaninov was a constant bridesmaid to Bruch’s bride, taking the Number 2 position each year.

Then, in the year that we all celebrated his 250th birthday, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart knocked Rachmaninov from his perch with his Clarinet Concerto. But his stay at Number 1 was short-lived, with our first English work topping the poll in 2007, when Vaughan Williams climbed to Number 1 with his beautifully wistful The Lark Ascending. It marks an enormous success for a piece of music that made its chart debut at Number 18 in 1996 – hence its relatively low position in the ‘chart of charts’, which follows over the next few pages.

In the aggregated chart, which we have used as the basis for this book, only three of the four works that have held the Number 1 position in our annual charts take the top four positions in our ‘ultimate’ countdown. The continued popularity and high placing of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 mean it is crowned victorious as the UK’s favourite classical work; and while in the first book, after fifteen years of the chart, it was Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto that appeared in second place, that position is now held by Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending. Mozart falls to Number 3 – and at Number 4, we find Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 (‘Emperor’): a piece which has never made it to Number 1 in any annual countdown, but which has always hovered near enough to the top spot, and is hence rewarded for its consistency.

No round-up of the Classic FM Hall of Fame would be complete without mention of movie music – and, in particular, that of John Williams, whose five entries in our aggregated chart, including Schindler’s List and Star Wars, put him well ahead of any other film composer. Another of Williams’s soundtrack successes, Harry Potter, together with Howard Shore’s music from Lord of the Rings, are relative newcomers to the Classic FM Hall of Fame, both having been released since we began our series of charts in 1996. The two films have since given birth to major franchises of their own.

In 1997, the highest new entry in the chart was Adiemus, which shot in at Number 134. The haunting voice of Miriam Stockley performing Karl Jenkins’ breakthrough work was one of the biggest-selling records of the 1990s. Jenkins has become the most popular living composer, with Adiemus eventually being eclipsed by his even more wildly successful The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace. Living composers continue to be well represented in the chart, with the likes of Patrick Hawes, Nigel Hess, Paul McCartney and Jon Lord all earning their places in the pages of this book.

Operatic works have performed strongly every year and Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers has consistently been the highest-placed representative of the genre. In terms of choral music, that hardy perennial of choirs across the land, Handel’s Messiah has regularly appeared ahead of the rest of a chasing pack, which includes masterful works from nearly all the other big-hitting composers.

Some pieces become popular with Classic FM listeners because of particular programmes on the station. Among these is the music of the eighteenth-century Italian Jesuit priest Domenico Zipoli, and in particular his beautiful Elevazione. Meanwhile, Arvo Pärt’s deeply minimalist music, such as Spiegel im Spiegel, has grown in popularity since the countdown first aired, while the Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi (Le Onde) and American Jay Ungar (The Ashokan Farewell) have enjoyed great success based on the airplay that they have received on Classic FM.

The success of the Classic FM Hall of Fame is not down to the radio station, though. It is ultimately thanks to you, our listeners, that we have been able to enjoy two decades of this very special countdown. If you’re one of the hundreds of thousands of people who have taken part over the last twenty years, thank you. And if you have yet to dip your toe into the waters of the Classic FM Hall of Fame, I very much hope you’ll be inspired to do so as you leaf through the pages that follow.

Each year, the chart changes – so who knows which composers will come to the fore, which film scores and operas will capture our collective imagination, or which long-forgotten pieces will be revitalised by a new recording? Whatever they may be, you can rest assured that we will be here at Classic FM to share your delight in discovering them.

Sam Jackson,

Managing Editor, Classic FM

Classic FM is the UK’s only 100 per cent classical music radio station. Since we began broadcasting in September 1992, the station has brought classical music to millions of people across the UK. If you’ve yet to discover for yourself the delights of being able to listen to classical music twenty-four hours a day, you can find Classic FM on 100–102 FM, on Digital Radio, online at www.classicfm.com, on Sky channel 0106, on Virgin Media channel 922, on Freeview channel 731 and on FreeSat channel 721. You can also download the free Classic FM app, which will enable you to listen to Classic FM on your iPhone, iPod, iPad, Blackberry or Android device.

Classic FM has a series of partnerships with orchestras across the country: the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of Opera North, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Northern Sinfonia, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and The Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields. And don’t forget the brilliant young musicians of the National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain and of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. To see if any of these orchestras are performing near you, log onto our website and click on the ‘Concerts and Events’ section.

Classic FM has a long history of working to develop the next generation of classical music lovers, supporting organisations such as Music for Youth, which runs the annual Schools Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in London, and The Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts, which has worked with the Philharmonia Orchestra to deliver an annual orchestral music education project to thousands of children across the UK, thanks to funding from the radio station’s charity appeal.

For more information about any part of Classic FM, log on to our website at www.classicfm.com

A collection of more than 100 CDs of the very best classical recordings played in full by some of the world’s greatest performers www.classicfm.com/shop/

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The Top 300 Chart

1

Sergei Rachmaninov

Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor

2

Ralph Vaughan Williams

The Lark Ascending

3

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Clarinet Concerto in A major

4

Ludwig van Beethoven

Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major (Emperor)

5

Max Bruch

Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor

6

Ludwig van Beethoven

Symphony No. 6 in F major (Pastoral)

7

Edward Elgar

Cello Concerto in E minor

8

Edward Elgar

Enigma Variations

9

Ludwig van Beethoven

Symphony No. 9 in D minor (Choral)

10

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis

11

Samuel Barber

Adagio for Strings

12

Johann Pachelbel

Canon in D major

13

Edvard Grieg

Piano Concerto in A minor

14

Camille Saint-Saëns

Symphony No. 3 in C minor (Organ Symphony)

15

Gustav Holst

The Planets

16

Gregorio Allegri

Miserere

17

Antonín Dvořák

Symphony No. 9 in E minor (From the New World)

18

George Frideric Handel

Messiah

19

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Requiem

20

Antonio Vivaldi

The Four Seasons

21

Pietro Mascagni

Cavalleria rusticana

22

Jean Sibelius

Finlandia

23

Edvard Grieg

Peer Gynt Suite No. 1

24

Gabriel Fauré

Requiem

25

Joaquín Rodrigo

Concierto de Aranjuez

26

Ludwig van Beethoven

Symphony No. 7 in A major

27

Sergei Rachmaninov

Symphony No. 2 in E minor

28

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

1812 Overture

29

Sergei Rachmaninov

Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini

30

Felix Mendelssohn

Violin Concerto in E minor

31

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major

32

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Scheherazade

33

Ludwig van Beethoven

Symphony No. 5 in C minor

34

Gustav Mahler

Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor

35

Ludwig van Beethoven

Piano Sonata No. 14 in C sharp minor (Moonlight)

36

Sergei Rachmaninov

Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor

37

Johann Sebastian Bach

Concerto in D minor for Two Violins

38

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor

39

Dmitri Shostakovich

Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major

40

George Gershwin

Rhapsody in Blue

41

Bedřich Smetana

Má Vlast

42

Tomaso Albinoni

Adagio in G minor

43

Johann Sebastian Bach

Toccata and Fugue in D minor

44

Ludwig van Beethoven

Violin Concerto in D major

45

Sergei Prokofiev

Romeo and Juliet

46

Gabriel Fauré

Cantique de Jean Racine

47

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Symphony No. 6 in B minor (Pathétique)

48

Johann Sebastian Bach

Brandenburg Concertos

49

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Swan Lake

50

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

The Marriage of Figaro

51

Giuseppe Verdi

Nabucco

52

Dmitri Shostakovich

The Gadfly

53

Felix Mendelssohn

Hebrides Overture (Fingal’s Cave)

54

George Frideric Handel

Coronation Anthems

55

Carl Orff

Carmina Burana

56

Claude Debussy

Suite bergamasque

57

Frédéric Chopin

Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor

58

Charles-Marie Widor

Organ Symphony No. 5 in F minor

59

Giacomo Puccini

Madama Butterfly

60

Georges Bizet

The Pearl Fishers

61

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Ave verum corpus

62

Giuseppe Verdi

Requiem

63

George Frideric Handel

Solomon

64

Frédéric Chopin

Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor

65

Richard Strauss

Four Last Songs

66

Giacomo Puccini

La bohème

67

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

The Magic Flute

68

Ludwig van Beethoven

Symphony No. 3 in E flat major (Eroica)

69

Jean Sibelius

Symphony No. 5 in E flat major

70

Jean Sibelius

Karelia Suite

71

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Symphony No. 5 in E minor

72

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

73

Aram Khachaturian

Spartacus

74

Gustav Mahler

Symphony No. 2 in C minor (Resurrection)

75

Jay Ungar

The Ashokan Farewell

76

Jules Massenet

Thaïs

77

Franz Schubert

Piano Quintet in A major (Trout)

78

Johann Sebastian Bach

St Matthew Passion

79

Johann Strauss II

By the Beautiful Blue Danube

80

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Nutcracker

81

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Flute and Harp Concerto in C major

82

Jean Sibelius

Symphony No. 2 in D minor

83

Maurice Ravel

Boléro

84

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Violin Concerto in D major

85

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Solemn Vespers

86

Richard Wagner

Tannhäuser

87

Jean Sibelius

Violin Concerto in D minor

88

Karl Jenkins

The Armed Man (Mass for Peace)

89

Johann Sebastian Bach

Mass in B minor

90

Richard Wagner

Die Walküre

91

Giuseppe Verdi

La traviata

92

Henryk Górecki

Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs)

93

Johannes Brahms

Violin Concerto in D major

94

Edward Elgar

Pomp and Circumstance Marches

95

George Butterworth

The Banks of Green Willow

96

Modest Mussorgsky

Pictures at an Exhibition

97

Edward Elgar

The Dream of Gerontius

98

Léo Delibes

Lakmé

99

Georges Bizet

Carmen

100

Thomas Tallis

Spem in Alium

101

Howard Shore

The Lord of the Rings

102

Richard Wagner

Tristan and Isolde

103

Camille Saint-Saëns

Carnival of the Animals

104

Giuseppe Verdi

Aida

105

Camille Saint-Saëns

Danse Macabre

106

Antonín Dvořák

Cello Concerto in B minor

107

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Romeo and Juliet

108

John Williams

Schindler’s List

109

Gabriel Fauré

Pavane

110

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Così fan tutte

111

Johannes Brahms

A German Requiem

112

Franz Schubert

String Quintet in C major

113

Alexander Borodin

In the Steppes of Central Asia

114

Arvo Pärt

Spiegel im Spiegel

115

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Clarinet Quintet in A major

116

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus

117

George Frideric Handel

Water Music Suites

118

Erik Satie

3 Gymnopédies

119

Johann Sebastian Bach

Cantata No. 147

120

Aaron Copland

Appalachian Spring

121

Johann Sebastian Bach

Cello Suites

122

Hector Berlioz

Symphonie fantastique

123

Ludovico Einaudi

Le Onde

124

Ludwig van Beethoven

Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor (Pathétique)

125

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Fantasia on Greensleeves

126

Antonio Vivaldi

Gloria in D major

127

Ludwig van Beethoven

Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major

128

Edvard Grieg

Holberg Suite

129

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

The Sleeping Beauty

130

Max Bruch

Scottish Fantasy

131

Alexander Borodin

Prince Igor

132

Ennio Morricone

The Mission

133

Ludwig van Beethoven

Romance for Violin and Orchestra No. 2 in F major

134

Giacomo Puccini

Tosca

135

Karl Jenkins

Adiemus – Songs of Sanctuary

136

Dmitri Shostakovich

Jazz Suite No. 2

137

Johannes Brahms

Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major

138

Charles Gounod

Mors et Vita

139

Franz Schubert

Symphony No. 9 in C major (Great)

140

Aaron Copland

Fanfare for the Common Man

141

John Williams

Star Wars

142

Ludwig van Beethoven

Egmont Overture

143

Igor Stravinsky

The Rite of Spring

144

Gioachino Rossini

William Tell

145

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Symphony No. 40 in G minor

146

Antonin Dvořák

Rusalka

147

Samuel Barber

Violin Concerto

148

Felix Mendelssohn

Symphony No. 4 in A major (Italian)

149

Johann Sebastian Bach

Goldberg Variations

150

Johann Sebastian Bach

Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major

151

Dmitri Shostakovich

Symphony No. 5 in D minor

152

Felix Mendelssohn

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

153

Dmitri Shostakovich

Jazz Suite No. 1

154

Richard Addinsell

Dangerous Moonlight

155

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Symphony No. 4 in F minor

156

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Don Giovanni

157

Ludwig van Beethoven

Bagatelle No. 25

158

Ralph Vaughan Williams

English Folk Songs Suite

159

Hans Zimmer

Gladiator

160

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major

161

Gioachino Rossini

The Thieving Magpie

162

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Capriccio Italien

163

George Frideric Handel

Music for the Royal Fireworks

164

Philip Glass

Violin Concerto

165

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor

166

Claude Debussy

Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune

167

John Williams

Harry Potter

168

Giacomo Puccini

Turandot

169

Giacomo Puccini

Gianni Schicchi

170

George Frideric Handel

Xerxes

171

Gustav Mahler

Symphony No. 1 in D major (Titan)

172

Robert Schumann

Piano Concerto in A minor

173

M. J. Canteloube de Malaret

Songs of the Auvergne

174

Antonio Vivaldi

Mandolin Concerto

175

Domenico Zipoli

Elevazione

176

Francisco Tárrega

Recuerdos de la Alhambra

177

Hamish MacCunn

The Land of the Mountain and the Flood

178

Johann Strauss I

Radetzky March

179

Ludovico Einaudi

I Giorni

180

Joseph Haydn

Trumpet Concerto in E flat major

181

George Frideric Handel

Sarabande

182

Joseph Haydn

The Creation

183

Gerald Finzi

Eclogue

184

Camille Saint-Saëns

Samson and Delilah

185

Franz Schubert

Symphony No. 5 in B flat major

186

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Symphony No. 41 in C major (Jupiter)

187

Peter Maxwell Davies

Farewell to Stromness

188

Henry Litolff

Concerto Symphonique No. 4 in D minor

189

Edward Elgar

Violin Concerto in B minor

190

William Walton

Crown Imperial

191

Ludwig van Beethoven

Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor

192

John Williams

Saving Private Ryan

193

Vincenzo Bellini

Norma

194

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Horn Concerto No. 4 in E flat major

195

C. Willibald von Gluck

Orpheus and Eurydice

196

Antonio Vivaldi

Motet in E major

197

Johannes Brahms

Symphony No. 4 in E minor

198

Franz Schubert

Symphony No. 8 in B minor (Unfinished)

199

John Rutter

Requiem

200

Nigel Hess

Ladies in Lavender

201

Richard Wagner

Lohengrin

202

Edward Elgar

Chanson de Matin

203

Ludwig van Beethoven

Choral Fantasia in C minor

204

John Barry

Dances with Wolves

205

Igor Stravinsky

The Firebird

206

Alexander Borodin

String Quartet No. 2 in D major

207

Ludwig van Beethoven

Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major

208

Dmitri Shostakovich

The Assault on Beautiful Gorky

209

Antonín Dvořák

Symphony No. 8 in G major

210

Edward Elgar

Introduction and Allegro for Strings

211

Edward Elgar

Symphony No. 1 in A flat major

212

Richard Wagner

Siegfried

213

Henry Purcell

Dido and Aeneas

214

Karl Jenkins

Palladio

215

Frédéric Chopin

Nocturne in E flat major

216

Maurice Ravel

Pavane pour une infante défunte

217

Niccolò Paganini

Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major

218

Sergei Prokofiev

Symphony No. 1 in D major (Classical)

219

Johann Sebastian Bach

Cantata No. 208

220

Johannes Brahms

Symphony No. 1 in C minor

221

Modest Mussorgsky

A Night on the Bare Mountain

222

Sergei Rachmaninov

Piano Concerto No. 1 in F sharp minor

223

Patrick Hawes

Quanta Qualia

224

Morten Lauridsen

O Magnum Mysterium

225

Richard Wagner

The Mastersingers of Nuremberg

226

Richard Strauss

Der Rosenkavalier

227

Max Bruch

Kol Nidrei

228

John Barry

Out of Africa

229

Hubert Parry

I Was Glad

230

Jean Sibelius

Lemminkäinen Suite

231

Tomaso Albinoni

Oboe Concerto in D minor

232

Frederick Delius

A Village Romeo and Juliet

233

Johannes Brahms

Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor

234

Gustav Mahler

Symphony No. 8 in E flat major (

Symphony of a Thousand

)

235

Hubert Parry

Jerusalem

236

Franz Liszt

Hungarian Rhapsodies

237

Ludwig van Beethoven

Triple Concerto in C major

238

Claudio Monteverdi

Vespers of 1610

239

Edvard Grieg

Lyric Pieces

240

Benjamin Britten

Peter Grimes

241

Nobuo Uematsu

Final Fantasy series

242

Franz Schubert

Ave Maria

243

Ralph Vaughan Williams

The Wasps

244

Johann Strauss II

Die Fledermaus

245

Craig Armstrong

William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet

246

Aram Khachaturian

Masquerade Suite

247

Edward Elgar

Salut d’Amour

248

John Williams

Jurassic Park

249

Johannes Brahms

Symphony No. 3 in F major

250

Giuseppe Verdi

Rigoletto

251

Edward Elgar

Serenade for Strings in E minor

252

John Rutter

A Gaelic Blessing

253

John Stanley

Trumpet Voluntary

254

Antonio Vivaldi

Guitar Concerto in D major

255

Jon Lord

Durham Concerto

256

Richard Wagner

Götterdämmerung

257

Karl Jenkins

Requiem

258

Johann Sebastian Bach

Cantata No. 140

259

John Tavener

Song for Athene

260

Gioachino Rossini

The Barber of Seville

261

Klaus Badelt

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

262

Frederick Delius

Koanga

263

Charles Gounod

St Cecilia Mass

264

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Exsultate, jubilate

265

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Sinfonia Concertante for Violin,Viola and Orchestra

266

Edward Elgar

Sea Pictures

267

César Franck

Panis angelicus

268

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

Stabat Mater

269

Gustav Mahler

Symphony No. 4 in G major

270

Jeremy Soule

The Elder Scrolls Series

271

Zbigniew Preisner

Requiem for My Friend

272

Antonín Dvořák

Slavonic Dances

273

Edward Elgar

Coronation Ode

274

Max Bruch

Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor

275

Sergei Rachmaninov

Vespers (All-Night Vigil)

276

William Walton

Spitfire Prelude and Fugue

277

Maurice Ravel

Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D major

278

George Gershwin

Piano Concerto in F major

279

Ronald Binge

Elizabethan Serenade

280

Astor Piazzolla

Libertango

281

Jacques Offenbach

The Tales of Hoffmann

282

Giulio Caccini

Ave Maria

283

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Symphony No. 1 (A Sea Symphony)

284

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Symphony No. 5 in D major

285

Hector Berlioz

L’Enfance du Christ

286

Gerald Finzi

Clarinet Concerto in C minor

287

Felix Mendelssohn

Elijah

288

Franz Schubert

Impromptus

289

Aaron Copland

Rodeo

290

Johannes Brahms

Symphony No. 2 in D major

291

Arturo Marquez

Danzon No. 2

292

Robert John Godfrey

The Mirror of Love

293

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Mass in C minor (Great)

294

Franz Joseph Haydn

Cello Concerto No. 1 in C major

295

Léo Delibes

Coppélia

296

Frederick Delius

On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring

297

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Serenade for Strings in C major

298

Grant Kirkhope

Viva Piñata

299

Sergei Prokofiev

Lieutenant Kijé

300

John Barry

The Beyondness of Things

RICHARD ADDINSELL (1904–1977)

Dangerous Moonlight

Anyone who has enjoyed a lazy Sunday afternoon weepie may well be unwittingly familiar with Richard Addinsell. In particular, the 1939 classic Robert Donat classic, Goodbye Mr. Chips, which features a halcyon Addinsell score. Although it was his first major success, he was already thirty-five years of age and the veteran of numerous stage plays: Adam’s Opera and a brace of Lewis Carroll adaptations to name just three.

With hindsight, the romantic story of the 1941 film Dangerous Moonlight was always going to prove his overriding hit, though, with its star character, the Warsaw Concerto. Set in the midst of the conflict and arriving in wartime, this dashing tale of love and derring-do set hearts aflutter, and Addinsell’s score was the perfect match. Originally, the object of the producer’s attention was Rachmaninov. A score using a brand new Rachmaninov concerto would do perfectly, thank you very much. But when the famous Russian composer passed on the project, Addinsell was given the job, with a strong nudge in the ‘Sergei’ direction. With vital and musically crucial assistance from Roy Douglas, a man who worked as musical right-hand man to such figures as Vaughan Williams and Walton, the score to the story of the concert pianist at war became an international best seller, spawning a succession of British sound-alikes.

RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Cristina Ortiz (piano); Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Vladimir Ashkenazy (conductor). Decca 414 3482

CHART POSITION 154

TOMASO ALBINONI (1671–1751)

Adagio in G minor

Albinoni was a Baroque composer who had a financially rather well-cushioned life, thanks to the shares he inherited in his father’s stationery firm, which manufactured playing cards, among other things. In 1945, the Italian academic Remo Giazotto published a book on Albinoni entitled The Violin Music of the Venetian Dilettante. Albinoni was just one area of expertise for Giazotto. Others included the composers Vivaldi and Busoni, as well as the music of the Baroque and Classical periods in general in Giazotto’s native Genoa.

The academic’s expertise on the life and music of the stationer’s son led him to complete an Albinoni fragment, which he said he had discovered in the Saxon State Library in Dresden, while he was trying to salvage manuscripts after it was bombed in the Second World War. This produced what is known as the ‘Albinoni Adagio’, but should surely, at the very least, be called the ‘Albinoni–Giazotto Adagio’. Late on in life, Giazotto changed his story, denying that the piece was based on a fragment of Albinoni’s original composition at all. Instead, he wanted the world to know that he, Giazotto, had written the whole thing himself and Albinoni hadn’t played any part in it. Nevertheless – and whatever the truth – the name ‘Albinoni’s Adagio’ sticks.

RECOMMENDED RECORDING

I Solisti Veneti; Claudio Scimone (conductor). Erato: 2292-45557-2.

CHART POSITION 42

Oboe Concerto in D minor

Unlike the famous Adagio, there is no question mark hanging over the authorship of one of Albinoni’s best-known works for oboe. During his lifetime, the self-styled Venetian dilettante became famous across Europe, chiefly for his operas. He was determined not to let the inheritance of his father’s paper and stationery company get in the way of composing and he soon divested himself of any day-to-day operational duties. This left him free to spend much of the 1720s (when he would have been in his fifties) touring the most fashionable international opera houses, overseeing his works. It meant that he found himself in the front line when it came to experiencing the latest advances in the music of the period. He was one of the first in Italy to write for the oboe – an emerging new instrument. This concerto is a near-perfect example of the species.

RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Pierre Pierlot (oboe); I Solisti Veneti; Claudio Scimone (conductor). Erato: ERA 450 992 1302.

CHART POSITION 231

GREGORIO ALLEGRI (1582–1652)

Miserere

This piece is the stuff of legends. Well, one particular legend, to be precise. Mozart, when he was a teenager, so the story goes, once heard Allegri’s Miserere being performed in the Sistine Chapel. The precocious young composer apparently scurried home and wrote down the entire work from memory. Wonderful as the story sounds, it’s almost certainly apocryphal: it would have been highly likely that Mozart would have come across the Miserere before, given its already significant popularity in musical circles.

The work itself is a sublime nine-voice setting of Psalm 51: Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam (‘Have mercy upon me, O God, after Thy great goodness’). As you listen to the heavenly sound of each interweaving voice, it’s fascinating to think that Allegri composed the piece for two separate choirs: one of four voices, and the other of five.

Allegri was a devout Catholic, having been trained as a priest, and he worked with the Vatican’s Papal Choir right up until his death. Karl Proske, former Canon of Ratisbon Cathedral, described the composer as a man whose music was imbued with his religious faith and personal sense of justice, saying Allegri was ‘a model of priestly peace and humility, a father to the poor, the consoler of captives and the forsaken, a self-sacrificing help and rescuer of suffering humanity’.

RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Choir of New College, Oxford; Edward Higginbottom (conductor). Erato: 3984 295882.

CHART POSITION 16

CRAIG ARMSTRONG (B. 1959)

William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet

Back in the 1590s, William Shakespeare could never have foreseen that his play, as wonderful as it was, would, some seven centuries on, still be spawning so many differing offspring. Not just the endless versions, the endless translations, but also the adaptations and inspirations: Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story; Duke Ellington’s Such Sweet Thunder; not to mention Dire Straits’ hit song.

Musically speaking, Romeo and Juliet has proven amazingly fertile soil for a vineyard of scores, each capturing the essence in their own way: Delius and his ‘village’ Romeo and Juliet; Tchaikovsky and his fantasy overture; and many folks’ very own ‘our tune’, Nino Rota’s Love Theme.

In 1996, the Bard’s story worked its magic yet again, this time with the soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet (and, yes, that has to be a plus sign, not an ampersand). In the middle of a characteristically eclectic soundtrack, which included the help of Massive Attack pals Nelle Hooper and Marius de Vries, Craig Armstrong’s music to the ‘Balcony Scene’ seems to be a moment of pure Shakespearian romantic suspension. Even removed from its film context, the ‘frozen in time’ moment of pure heartfelt romance is still there and is surely one of the reasons this music has endured.

RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Various; Craig Armstrong (conductor). Capitol Records: 7243 8 59871 2 0

CHART POSITION 245

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685–1750)

Concerto in D minor for Two Violins

Double Concerto

Today, around half a million people live in Leipzig, a city that boasts one of the oldest and most respected orchestras in the world, the Gewandhaus, as well as two opera houses, a couple of music festivals and much more besides. However, when Bach arrived in Leipzig in 1723, he inherited a professional music staff of four town pipers, three violinists and one apprentice. At the age of forty-eight, he had taken what seemed to him to be a backward move in his career, becoming Kantor of St Thomas’s. He built up his force of musicians by recruiting from his school and the nearby university. Composed in 1717, the ‘Bach Double’, as it is often called, came with him from his previous job in Cöthen, but seven years after he had arrived in Leipzig, he made a transcription for two harpsichords. Many of Bach’s orchestrations were for purely pragmatic reasons, so we might presume that none of the three fiddlers were up to playing it in its original form. However, when the Cöthen version of the work was lost, Bach specialists were able to reconstruct it from the harpsichord version. The slow movement is surely one of Bach’s most sublime creations.

RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Daniel Hope (violin); Marieke Blankestijn (violin); Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Warner Classics: 2564625452.

CHART POSITION 37

Toccata and Fugue in D minor

This work might as well be called ‘The Organ’. For many, the instrument Stravinsky called ‘the monster that never breathes’ seems to come alive in this piece, which might have been written to make the listener believe that the organ talks, proving Stravinsky wrong. This is perhaps all the more striking when one realises that, since the 1980s at least, there has been a growing body of opinion that the work is not even by J. S. Bach. As with a lot of Bach’s music, there is no surviving manuscript by the man himself – something that is not enough in itself to cast a stain on the work’s credentials. It is more the complete originality, the one-off nature and the very un-Bach-like characteristics that lead some musicologists to doubt its provenance. If Bach did write it, say the believers, it was probably when he was very young – possibly between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two. The finest performances, such as the one recommended below, prove that, no matter who actually wrote it, it’s a masterpiece of epic proportions.

RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Daniel Chorzempa (organ). Pentatone: PTC5186127.

CHART POSITION 43

Johann Sebastian Bach

1685-1750

‘Johann Sebastian Bach has done everything completely, he was a man through and through.’

FRANZ SCHUBERT

This German composer was the most famous of a large musical family. Alongside Handel, he was one of the greatest composers of the Baroque period. He was also an organist and director of church music, which is why lots of his works are religious.

Orphaned as a child, he became a chorister when he was fifteen. Four years later, he walked from his home in Arnstadt to Lübeck to hear a performance by his favourite composer, Buxtehude. The teenager then walked all the way back to Arnstadt, a total journey of some 420 miles.

Bach’s career began in Weimar as an organist and court musician. Then he took a job in Cöthen, before eventually going to live and work in Leipzig for almost three decades.

He was without doubt a diligent composer, but that very much went with the territory of writing for church choirs. There was an expectation that a steady stream of new choral works would be composed for his choirs to perform. Although a hard worker, Bach was not the quiet bookish don that one might imagine. Instead, he often had blazing rows with his employers and was even locked up for disloyalty on one notable occasion. As well as his choral works, Bach wrote some of the finest examples of secular Baroque keyboard and orchestral music.

DID YOU KNOW?

Alongside composing, Bach also found time to teach music to many of his children. He had twenty in total – so, an entire class of young musicians!

It was not until after his death that Bach’s true greatness was recognised. Towards the end of his life, rather than his huge output being hailed as that of a master composer, he began to be overshadowed by his sons Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Christian, Johann Christoph Friedrich and Wilhelm Friedemann, all of whom were successful composers of the day.

Bach was a fan of two things: coffee and numbers. Lots of his pieces play games with numbers, inaudibly. And he wrote a whole cantata about coffee.

The Brandenburg Concertos

There is no doubt that J. S. Bach did write the Brandenburg Concertos. However, he would not have recognised them by that name. When he penned the six concertos, almost certainly during his time at Cöthen (presumably for various members of the Cöthen Court Orchestra) the composer gave them the title ‘Concertos for Several Instruments’. It was only his decision to package them up as a present for Christian Ludwig, the Margrave of Brandenburg (a margrave is roughly on a par with a marquis) that gave them their title.

Sadly for Bach, there appears to be no record of him ever having received a reply from the Margrave – and certainly not the one he desired: ‘Thank you, Herr Bach, here’s a large bundle of money and a job.’ Indeed, there is no evidence the Margrave himself even heard them played.

Each of the six concertos appeals most to different listeners, from the galumphing First, the more ‘stately-home’ styling of the Second, the homely Third, the lofty Fourth and the galloping Fifth right through to the joyous Sixth.

RECOMMENDED RECORDING

English Baroque Soloists; John Eliot Gardiner (conductor). SDG: SDG707.

CHART POSITION 48

St Matthew Passion

Good Friday 1727 in Leipzig was a particularly good Friday. When Bach had first arrived, four years earlier, he had no doubt wowed his employers – not to mention the congregation – with that year’s Easter offering, the St John Passion. Bach was ushered to Leipzig on the promise of a very large salary indeed, so the splendour of the work was probably timely. Given that he was responsible for providing weekly music at not one, but two, churches, for teaching singing to the schoolchildren, for training the choir, for teaching Latin (although, in the end, he farmed this part out to a deputy), he could surely be forgiven for thinking he was doing enough. Indeed, one of the reasons for Bach’s constant use of existing chorale tunes as the basis for his extended cantatas was not just familiarity to his audience, but also sheer necessity. Four years into the job, though, he decided to compose another major choral piece. The St Matthew Passion is a monster of a work for two orchestras with extra words by Bach’s favourite poet, Picander.

RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Anthony Rolfe Johnson (tenor, Evangelist); Barbara Bonney (soprano); Ann Monoylos (soprano); Anne Sofie von Otter (alto); Michael Chance (alto); Howard Crook (tenor); Olaf Bär (baritone); Cornelius Hauptmann (bass); English Baroque Soloists; Monteverdi Choir; John Eliot Gardiner (conductor). Deutsche Grammophon Archiv: 4297732.

CHART POSITION 78

Mass in B minor

There are several reasons why many Bach-lovers regard the B minor Mass as the pinnacle of his work. Size, for one, singles it out, even when compared to his previous titans, the St John Passion and the St Matthew Passion. It also contains some of the most engaging passages of music that he ever wrote, such as the opening five-part Kyrie eleison. Composed around 1748–49, it came at the end of Bach’s life, when he had only one year left to live.

When the work is heard in its entirety, the listener comes away with the impression that this is a piece of music the composer had been building up to writing for the whole of his life. It therefore seems ironic that much of this best-loved work was ‘bottom-drawer’ music – music that Bach had either put by earlier or recycled. Indeed, he didn’t even give the work a name. So this bundled collection of itinerant manuscripts simply bears the names of its individual sections, save for the Missa, which he transplanted wholesale from some fifteen years earlier. Despite being a motley disarray of homeless Mass sections on paper, it sounds completely wonderful.

RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Barbara Schlick (soprano); Catherine Patriasz (soprano); Charles Brett (alto); Howard Crook (tenor); Peter Kooy (bass); Chorus and Orchestra of Collegium Vocale, Ghent; Philippe Herreweghe (conductor). Virgin Veritas: 6931972.

CHART POSITION 89

Cantata No. 147

If we translate the title of the most popular section of Bach’s cantata a little more accurately than the now ubiquitous English version we know, it comes out something like ‘Jesus remains my joy, my heart’s comfort and essence’, rather than ‘Jesu, joy of man’s desiring’. Indeed, the rest of the translation bears precious little relation to the actual German text, written by the lawyer and poet Salomo Franck. Accuracy of words aside, this exquisite movement – choral interludes between that divine, undulating melody – might be best seen as a mere key to unlocking the rest of the cantata, entitled Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (which translates as ‘Heart and Mouth and Deed and Life’). Bach, in his quest to supply music for umpteen venues throughout his life, recycled the cantata – adding the now favourite section only the second time around. Originally destined for the last Sunday of Advent, the reworked version became a setting for May’s Feast of the Visitation. Thank goodness, in some respects, for the composer’s pretty oppressive work schedule. And a great example of recycling making sense.

RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Susan Gritton (soprano); Lisa Milne (soprano); Michael Chance (counter-tenor); Ian Bostridge (tenor); Michael George (bass); Choir of King’s College, Cambridge; Academy of Ancient Music; Stephen Cleobury (conductor). Warner Classics: 5569942.

CHART POSITION 119

Cello Suites

Rarely has a composer managed to pare his music down to its absolute essence as Bach did in his Cello Suites. Perhaps there are three reasons for this: one, we’re dealing with a genius composer; two, their solo nature – forcing Bach to astound his listener with clever and sometimes fiendishly difficult ways of maximising the instrument; and three, the fact that the cello is often considered the nearest instrument to the human voice. It somehow captures the feeling of exposed honesty, of complete naturalness, as the greatest voices do.

There are six suites in all, each with six movements. There are no surviving manuscripts in Bach’s own hand, so musicians have relied on a copy written out by his second wife, Anna Magdalena. Her role as a scribe has even led some musical historians to paint her as a sort of Bacon to Bach’s Shakespeare, with the suggestion that she actually wrote many of the cello suites herself.

The eminent cellist Pablo Casals kicked off the craze for recording all six in the 1920s – he’d found a second-hand copy of the music in a charity shop when he was just thirteen years old. Today, stunning complete versions abound.

RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Yo-Yo Ma (cello). Sony: SM2K89754.

CHART POSITION 121

Goldberg Variations

The story behind this work is one of music’s best, with a cast of three. First, a count: Count Kaiserling, who suffered from insomnia. Second comes his much put-upon musician, the eponymous Johann Goldberg. Finally, there is Bach. When Kaiserling was up all night, he would make Goldberg play in the adjacent antechamber. Bach’s reputation as a fine composer reached the ears of Kaiserling, so Goldberg was sent to him to be well tutored. When Bach heard of the plight of Goldberg’s boss, he penned the work. It was a genre of music into which he had never before ventured, thinking variations almost a form of musical ‘sheep counting’ (in the most respectful sense) and thus perfect for an insomniac. Luckily for Bach, and also for Goldberg, the new composition helped to ensure that Kaiserling was out for the count. For his troubles, Bach was said to have been paid a goblet full of gold louis d’or.

RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Angela Hewitt (piano). Hyperion: CDA30002.

CHART POSITION 149

Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major

Bach wrote a total of four orchestral suites, although his definition of an orchestra is pretty loose, as the group of musicians performing the work might be as small as a string quartet, a handful of woodwind players, some trumpets and a percussionist. The most popular of the suites is the Third, which was written, along with the others, during the last period of his life in Leipzig. It comes in five movements and, from the outset, it feels like ‘civic’ music, perhaps reflecting the fact that Bach was a public servant, rather than an aristocrat’s in-house musician. In Germany and France, these works tend to be known as ouvertures, which is also the designation of the first movement in each case. The Air (the second movement) has now been reclaimed in its original form after a period being primarily known as a transcription by August Wilhelmj, which made it a party piece playable on only one string of a violin – hence its nickname Air on the G string. For an entire generation, this piece will forever be linked to Hamlet cigars, after being used in a long-running and highly popular television advertising campaign.

RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Regis: RRC1160.

CHART POSITION 150

Cantata No. 208

Not many works in this book are known by three completely different names. Although best known for ‘Sheep May Safely Graze’, this particular work is described as Bach’s Hunting Cantata – a reference to its secular subject matter. Its beacon aria is the ninth movement, Schafe können sicher weiden. To explain that line, sheep may graze safely where there’s a good shepherd who stays awake and where there’s a good nobleman watching over a blissful nation. Why did Bach set such a line? Well, because he was writing this music for the birthday of Duke Christian in 1713 and he knew which side his bread was buttered. The commission also gives rise to its third name, the Birthday Cantata.

RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Concentus Musicus Vienna; Nikolaus Harnoncourt (conductor). Warner: 2564 692592.

CHART POSITION 219

Cantata No. 140

The opening words of this cantata, Wachet auf, which translates as ‘Sleepers Awake’, contains a tune written by a Lutheran pastor called Philipp Nicolai. It caught Bach’s attention during his golden Leipzig period. It wasn’t unusual for Bach to transform original melodies by other chorale and hymn-tune composers into his own works of art. The most famous section of this cantata is Part IV: ‘Zion hears the watchmen calling’ and it is here that Nicolai’s tune features.

The first performance of this most beautiful of wake-up calls was on 25 November 1731, which was the 27th Sunday after Trinity – the specific day for which the work was written to be performed. It is notable that there can be only 27 Sundays after Trinity in years when Easter falls early. As a result, this now famous cantata was, in fact, rarely heard in the years after it was written.

RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Monteverdi Choir; English Baroque Soloists; John Eliot Gardiner (conductor). SDG: SDG171.

CHART POSITION 258

KLAUS BADELT (B. 1967)

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

‘Artistic differences’ is a tried and tested cliché. So many great teams and partnerships have found their aesthetic ships wrecked on these famous rocks. Sometimes, it leads to dead ends and much-loved projects sunk to the depths of Davy Jones’ Locker. Occasionally, though, it can be the catalyst for a moment of magic.

Such was the case when Alan Silvestri opted to abandon the ship that was (The Curse of) the Black Pearl. When Hans Zimmer was only partly free – busy working on his Golden Globe-nominated score to The Last Samurai – he offered to take up some of the work, with a lion’s share falling to the then fairly new composer, Klaus Badelt. Testament to the tight timescale to which the film’s makers were working is seen in the list of further composers who were also drafted in to work on ‘cues’ (separate sections of the score) and orchestrations: seven in all including a pre-Game of Thrones, twenty-nine-year-old Ramin Djawadi.

Talking of ‘cues’, there are some great ones in The Curse of the Black Pearl, from the chase sequence ‘Barbossa is Hungry’, to the moment William Bootstrap Turner is tied to a cannon: ‘Bootstrap’s Bootstraps’.

RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Various; Blake Neely (conductor). Walt Disney: 860089.

CHART POSITION 261

SAMUEL BARBER (1910–1981)

Adagio for Strings

For many, it was its use in the film Platoon. For others, it was William Orbit’s Pieces in a Modern Style project. But very few of us can claim to have first experienced Barber’s Adagio for Strings in its original form: as part of a string quartet. The American composer wrote his String Quartet Opus 11 in 1936 – and considered himself happy with the result. But he had one of the twentieth century’s greatest conductors to thank for what became a new and far more profitable life for this relatively unknown piece. Arturo Toscanini spotted a hit when he heard its second movement, and urged Barber to arrange it for full string orchestra. The composer wisely took the advice on board – and, in 1938, Toscanini premiered the new work with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. Millions of Americans were listening as it was broadcast on the radio, and Adagio for Strings quickly became a huge success.

The solemn, heart-wrenching sadness of the music has lent itself to a range of powerful uses beyond the concert hall. Adagio for Strings was played at the funeral of Albert Einstein, can be heard on all sorts of commercials and movie soundtracks, and has become a modern-day hit among trance music pioneers, who have taken the hypnotic harmonies composed by Barber and used them to create very different, high octane sounds. The composer also arranged a choral version of the work, the Agnus Dei, in 1967.

RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Detroit Symphony Orchestra; Neeme Järvi (conductor). Chandos: CHAN 9169.

CHART POSITION 11

Violin Concerto

Given the great success of the Adagio for Strings, Samuel Barber could have been forgiven for resting on his musical laurels in the late 1930s. But the American composer was having none of it: he set about working on his only Violin Concerto in 1939, just a year after the Adagio’s premiere.

Initially, the composer’s reasons for cracking on with a new work were primarily financial: he’d been commissioned to write a violin concerto by one Samuel Fels, father to one of Barber’s classmates at the Curtis Institute of Music and a Philadelphia industrialist. Fels was a wealthy man, but a seemingly demanding one, too. Far from letting Barber compose at a distance, Fels, it’s said, gave continued feedback on what he did and didn’t like. At first, the work was too simplistic. Barber’s solution? Add a fiendishly challenging finale. Fels’s response? It had become too complex. Back and forth they went, the composer duly making changes against his wishes – presumably because he knew that a worthwhile pay cheque awaited him at the end of his endeavours.

Today, it’s the soulful, intense middle movement of the concerto that guarantees its enduring popularity. The violin seems at times to be almost wrestling with the orchestra, before reaching a position of serene contentment – only to find itself wrought in conflict again a few moments later. Stunning stuff.

RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Joshua Bell (violin); Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; David Zinman (conductor). Classic FM: CFM FW 004.

CHART POSITION 147

JOHN BARRY (1933–2011)

Dances with Wolves

Kevin Costner directed and starred in Dances with Wolves, a 1990 Western, which hoovered up seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. With a running time of nearly three hours (the director’s cut comes in just four minutes shy of four hours), it truly was a saga, and one that worked. Made for just $22 million, it eventually took more than $184 million at the box office.

The British film composer John Barry’s sweeping string sounds suited the epic nature of the story’s Sioux-soaked skylines perfectly. As well as the main