BBC Music Magazine Awards: playing of integrity and passion

The BBC Music Magazine Awards took over Kings Place the other night and offered an evening that would in old-fashioned pop-psychology terms have been termed a "warm fuzzy". It was Leif Ove Andsnes's birthday, for starters, and he didn't only walk off with the Concerto Award, but also with Recording of the Year for his recording with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra of Beethoven concertos nos 2 and 4.

Accepting the prize, the Norwegian superstar - who, we're told, is now one of the country's biggest exports - explained that he had had to postpone the recording because at the time it turned out that his wife was having their twins three months early; they remained in hospital for two months. But all is well, the recording took place at a later point - and he says he is delighted with the results both of the recording and of the twins. Tony Pappano was there to present his prize, then sat down at the piano and struck up Happy Birthday. So now pretty much the entire UK music business can say it has sung with Tony Pappano.

It was a fine night for keyboard players, all in all. Benjamin Grosvenor won the Instrumental for his gorgeous album 'Dances'. Mahan Esfahani was Newcomer of the Year for his CPE Bach Sonatas (with his old record label, Hyperion) and he was there to perform a fabulous example from it on the harpsichord - as well as delivering an impassioned tribute to the inspiration he'd received as a lad listening to the playing of the person who presented his prize, Trevor Pinnock. And the inimitable Oliver Condy, editor of BBC Music Magazine, initiated the whole evening by telling us a story about the time he had to perform the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony in Cambridge recently and the digital organ malfunctioned...let's just say that Hoffnung could not have bettered this account.

The one person who nearly succeeded, if on video, was the pianist Alexander Melnikov, whose recording of Beethoven trios with Isabelle Faust and Jean-Guihen Queyras won the Chamber Award. "A lot of jokes probably begin with 'A Frenchman, a German and a Russian decide to play trios together'..." he began in the most deadpan of tones...

In person once more, we were treated to a performance of one of Elgar's Sea Pictures by the amazing Sarah Connolly in tribute to her recording of these plus The Dream of Gerontius with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Sir Andrew Davies that scooped the Choral Award. Opera went to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg from Glyndebourne, with Gerald Finley as Hans Sachs and Vladimir Jurowski conducting; DVD was for Being Traviata, with Natalie Dessay in rehearsal; and vocal went to Joyce DiDonato for her 'Stella di Napoli' album. Premiere award was for Unsuk Chin's concertos respectively for cello, piano and sheng, and Orchestral was the late Claudio Abbado's Bruckner 9 with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra.

You can see the full list of winners and shortlisted discs, and listen to extracts, here.

Can't think of a single thing to argue with, really, so let's raise a glass, or a coffee (depending at what time you're reading this) to a roster of wonderful winners - devoted musicians every one of them, who deserve what little celebration this crazy world can give them. At a time when other pianists seem mired in controversy - Valentina Lisitsa being dropped from Toronto for political reasons, Gabriela Montero desperate to reveal the corruption of Venezuela and Khatia Buniatishvili causing fuss by bothering to respond to an iffy review - while we can't separate music and politics, because one never can, we can at least keep celebrating the music  first of all. Because if it wasn't for music, these would be grim times. Music can carry us to a better world. Here's hoping it always will.

Here's Benjamin.

Pianist lands a dream job

Piers Lane. Photo: (c) Keith Saunders

And the dream job lands a great guy. The Australian pianist Piers Lane has been announced as the new artistic director of the Sydney International Piano Competition. 

It's a fine and respected event in one of the contest world's most gorgeous cities, inaugurated in 1977 by its founder Claire Dan, founder of the Cladan Cultural Exchange Institute. The finals take place in the concert hall of the Sydney Opera House.

Lane won the prize for Best Australian Pianist at its inaugural competition and was on the jury in 2004; besides being an ever-popular presence on the concert platform he is artistic director of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in Townsville and has spearheaded in London the annual Myra Hess Day at the National Gallery.

He is a sought-after adjudicator, a tireless treasure-trove raider in the rare repertoire department, and a recording artist whose discs for Hyperion are a constant delight. He's also a thoroughly lovely bloke and a man of integrity. The world of music competitions needs such people.

Maybe Leeds has missed a trick by letting him slip through the net to the other side of the world.

Update - here's an interview Piers gave to the ABC re his appointment.

JD meets...Louis de Bernières

I took a writer whose books I adore to lunch at Claridge's a few weeks back. My Editor's Lunch with Louis de Bernières has just gone live at The Amati Magazine and in it the author tells me about the lavish role that music plays in his life and work. And we hear about the new book that's coming out in July - his biggest in a decade. Read the interview here...

Watching Matthew Bourne in rehearsal...

Zizi Strallen rehearsing as Lana. Photo: (c) Micha Theiner

I trekked off to Three Mills Studios the other week to watch Matthew Bourne's company rehearsing the long-awaited revival of The Car Man and depict him in action... the resulting piece is in The Independent today, here.

By the way, part of the score for this roller-coaster Carmen adaptation are based on the Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin’s reworking for strings and percussion of highlights from the original, augmented with further arrangements by Terry Davies. Shchedrin made his version originally for his wife, Maya Plisetskaya, at the Bolshoi in the sixties; she was keen to dance the role of Carmen. Apparently she asked Shostakovich first, but the great Dmitri demurred. And Bourne says that he asked Shchedrin if he'd be interested in expanding the original. "He said something like 'Couldn't you play it backwards?', so I guess he wasn't," he remarks. Expanding the score was his first project with Terry Davies, he adds, and happily they have been working together ever since.

Shchedrin might well feel that he has had quite enough of Carmen: so quirky, fresh, convincing and useful is this suite that it has been taken up by ballet companies the world over. Carlos Acosta is planning a new version too. 

Last year was all about Manon; this year it's Carmen. I've just written an article about a fascinating play sparked by the idea of a singer who seems doomed to play Carmen over and over and over and over again. Should be out soon. 

Farewell, Dennis Marks (1948 - 2015)

Dennis Marks in Budapest, 2000 (Photo: BBC)

The music business is in shock at the news that Dennis Marks, former head of BBC Music and one-time general director of English National Opera, has died of leukaemia at the age of 66. Dennis was a dear friend and deeply supportive in times of trouble, besides being a true polymath with a massive inner library of cultural knowledge and apparently endless spheres of interest. Having not seen him around his usual haunts in some time, I had blithely assumed he was busy writing a book or some radio scripts. Alas, this can't have been the case. All our thoughts and love go to his widow, Sally Groves.

One of my favourite memories of Dennis dates from my launch bash for Songs of Triumphant Love in 2009. After a drinks party in Daunt Books, Marylebone High Street, a bunch of us sloped off for an Italian meal nearby. It was August and Glyndebourne was in full swing; there my husband had made friends with Adriana Kucerova and Jennifer Holloway, who were starring in a spot of Humperdinck, and they turned up to the do and joined us for dinner. At the long table, Dennis chose us all some tasty Sicilian red wine, then phoned home and declared: "I'm in Strada with Hansel and Gretel."

Here is a fine obituary from the Telegraph.