Best CDs of 2017 - BBC Music Mag Awards and me

To discover the one of these six favourite discs I reviewed or rated in 2017 which not quite enough of my fellow jurors were persuaded to shortlist, you'll have to head over to the voting page of the BBC Music Magazine Awards 2018. I'm finally free to divulge a little more about the December day at Editor Olly Condy's home in Bristol when seven of us, plied with cake and home-made membrillo plus plentiful cups of strong coffee, thrashed out our choices - and a very amiable conference it was (the others on the panel were Olly, Reviews Editor Rebecca Franks, Nicholas Anderson, Erica Jeal,  Andrew McGregor and Kate Wakeling).

Suffice it to say that of the above, Sean Shibe's first complete solo disc, of British guitar music, Bychkov's recording of Schmidt's Second Symphony and the revelatory Martinů Cantatas on Supraphon won the greatest degree of unanimity among us (my reviews of the latter two should be on the BBCMM website, but the reviews index is patchy and they aren't, yet). I'm also pleased that Alec-Frank Gemmill's enterprise in going flat-out for a CD that wasn't just the usual recital disc - featuring four different period horns, and Alasdair Beatson playing four different period pianos - made the grade.

You are of course free to vote any way you wish, or not at all; these are only my opinions, but I hope a bit more background is helpful. Biggest surprise for me was the electrifying approach of Jean Rondeau - anything but a cool dude in the performances - and Dynastie Bach family harpsichord concertos; since that got its nomination, I can't be too sad that Rachel Podger and Brecon Baroque didn't make it too, though I liked her quasi-improvisatory playing just as much.

Instrumental and Chamber were the hardest categories to choose from, overwhelming us with riches; though content with the three nominations in each category, I would have been equally happy with Beatrice Rana's startling Bach Goldberg Variations, up there with Denk and Gould;

another surprise favourite, Shai Wosner's brilliant programming of 'Impromptus', one way forward in recital planning which he shares with fellow pianist Ari Porat;

violinist Daniel Rowland and pianist Natacha Kudritskaya rising to the near-impossible challenges of Enescu's supernatural Third Violin Sonata;

and several quartet discs. I got to know Grieg Quartets played with magical pianissimos where required by a group with whom I was also unfamiliar, the Meccore String Quartet, and another of those imaginatively planned programmes which seem the prerogative of the younger generation comes from the Schumann Quartet(t), linking 'Landscapes' of Haydn, Takemitsu, Bartók and Pärt .

There was an endgame battle for Instrumental because two of us hadn't received Krystian Zimerman's Schubert Sonatas by the day of judgement. Our front-runners pending that included my absolute favourite, Alexander Melnikov's first disc of Prokofiev sonatas (Melnikov was also a top contender with Andreas Staier in very live-wire Schubert piano duets).

Because it's perhaps the finest performance I've ever heard of the Sixth Sonata, and equal first with Richter in the Eighth, I'd put this above Zimerman's Schubert, since he stands alongside quite a few other greats. But still, when I finally heard it, I had to include Zimerman in my final three over Fenella Humphrys' 'Bach to the Future 2' - great playing, but for me there were a couple of duds among the new works. That probably gave Zimerman the edge in the joint final choice. Anyway, Melnikov will be back with Volume Two of his Prokofiev soon, which should give the 2018 panel something to get hold of...

Since this is also about discs which may not be new, but which I discovered in 2017, I have to give an awed salute to pianist Peter Jablonski, whose playing I haven't heard for years and whose fiancee, the vivacious Anastasia Belina, became a new friend last year when we appeared together in a pre-Proms talk.

It would have been my prerogative to simply pass over the discs she sent in silence if there had been nothing special, but they're first rate - I even think I prefer Jablonski's Grieg over Andsnes' (whose Sibelius disc, by the way, nearly reached the Instrumental category, but that was so saturated with good performances this year). Liszt, well, the repertoire isn't so much to my taste, but I can't deny the magisterial diversity of the approach. Wonderful sound from the Japan-based issues, too.

In another hangover from a previous year, having been mesmerised by young Pavel Kolesnikov's selection of Chopin Mazurkas at a lunchtime Prom, I caught up with this disc, which goes right to the top of my Chopin list (or equal first with several, at any rate).

But back to the Awards. Quite a few might-have-beens bit the dust in Orchestral - Paavo Järvi's lithe and clear-lined Strauss Ein Heldenleben and Don Juan just missed the final three by one vote, and Vaughan Williams gave rise to three front-runners - though the fresh kick applied by Andrew Davis to the more Satanic moments of the ballet Job as well as the eerie solos in the Ninth Symphony clinched the chosen one for me. Terje Tønnesen's string-orchestra versions of the Janáček String Quartets may have missed out by being rather hard to categorise, not least because of the excellent adaptation of Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata (inspiration for the First Quartet) so well read - in English AND Norwegian - by Teodor Janson.

Sadly my personal favourite Opera/Vocal disc, Daniel Behle's Schubert Arias, wasn't to a couple of reviewers' taste repertoire-wise, and the period-instrument orchestra is not so highly rated

but I'm delighted Ann Hallenberg's delicious programme of Venetian carnival arias made the list. I'm also glad to have made the acquaintance of Louis Andriessen's Theatre of the World. Those who saw the world premiere production say this audio recording leaves more to the imagination, though I'd love to see a director like Richard Jones tackle its black-comedy apocalypse.

I also fought hard for both Louise Alder's and Nicky Spence's Strauss songs (the last a real surprise, conclusion to the excellent Hyperion series) in the Vocal category, but mezzo Jamie Barton's debut disc was a unanimous choice. There's a vocal personality that just leaps out at you; and that's a necessary virtue when you have over 200 discs to listen to and you can't sit there riveted with a score for every one. The special ones always make you stop what you're doing and listen properly.

Very happy with the Choral choices - as well as the Martinů, they included the best Estonian choir of all, Vox Clamantis, whose acquaintance I made at Tallinn's 2017 Estonian Music Days, in a peerless Pärt programme.

Champion oddity of the year for me, one that actually works, was the Japanese percussionist Kuniko giving a whole new, lugubrious and hypnotic meaning to Bach on the marimba. Don't think that even got reviewed in the BBC Music Mag last year, but if it did, it wasn't on the list. 

Is Bach the only composer who can be transferred to just about any instrument? It seems so: another Awards nomination I was sorry not to see reach the final three was the unusual trio of cellist Yo-Yo Ma, mandolinist Chris Thile and bass player Edgar Meyer in trio sonatas and other transcriptions; there's some magically deft playing in the more virtuosic passages there.

Needless to say my most serendipitous discovery of 2017, which I've already chronicled here and here, was the wonder of Helmuth Rilling's Bach cantatas.

It was an easy step from charity-shop purchases to the complete set, which will be keeping me company every Sunday and holy day in 2018.

Today's Cantata for the Third Sunday after Epiphany was BWV 111, 'Was mein Gott will, das g'scheh Allzeit', another gem from January 1725. The adoring, adorning pair of winds this two are oboes, dialoguing with violins in thirds around lively choral counterpoint and a terrific busy bass. This opening chorus may be in the minor, but it's all spritely. The cantus firmus hymn is one from 1547 by Albrecht von Brandenburg, who brought Lutherism to his state. Either his was a lopsided face or Cranach the Elder hasn't quite got it right here.

The cantata bursts with a muscular Christianity in the bass aria and a pounding duet for alto and tenor driven by dotted rhythms  - not quite charming, and it might be one of the few places in the Rilling set where the voices (Helen Watts and Lutz-Michael Herder) aren't perfectly matched, but the impression remains one of forceful vivacity to fit the 'confident steps' ('behertzten Schritten'). The surprise for me was the twist in the short but expressive soprano recitative before the final chorale, reminding us unexpectedly of that final struggle where death tears the spirit from the body, the deathbed a 'battleground' ('Kampftplatz'). The oboes are back at hand to guide the soloist through this final dark night. Lesson for the day: never take the essence of any cantata for granted until it's all over.

Now, on with that voting.

Sophie of the moment

That's not our Sophe, La Sarina, who is ALWAYS of the moment (read her very moving latest blogpost about how her father's fellow Swedish woodsmen chipped in to fund the annual trachoma operations she organises in rural Mali), but the latest singer stepping in to portray Strauss and Hofmannsthal's Mamsell Sophie Anna Barbara Faninal. Louise Alder*, pictured as Clomiri in Imeneo for the London Handel Festival, wouldn't quite dress like that for the demure but spirited teenager, unless of course Richard Jones had wanted to go one stage further for her on-the-table humiliation in a male chauvinist bidding war.

Louise has only just graduated from the very Royal College of Music where I'm talking very soon (at 4.45, to be precise, to be edited for the interval on BBC Radio 3) with Sara Mohr-Pietsch and Hugo Shirley before the Glyndebourne Rosenkavalier hits the Proms in a semi-staged performance. She stunned us in the cover performances of the Presentation of the Rose and the Trio in the Study Day I had the joy to take part in down at the house. It's a shame that Teodora Gheorghiu is indisposed but, lovely actress though she was, I fear the voice might have been a size too small for the Albert Hall. Let's have another shot of Gheorghiu in the show with Tara Erraught before the wig change (the audience tonight will see what a lovely colleen Erraught really is). More on the Marianne Leitmetzerin in a moment. Both Glyndebourne production photos by Bill Cooper.

La Alder will shine tonight, be sure of that, like I've seen Lucy Crowe, Lisa Milne and Marie Arnet do before her. Crowe and Arnet actually stole the show in the full performances I saw, or rather alongside Peter Rose's Ochs in LC's case.

There's another replacement: Lars Woldt, a superlative Ochs, is also indisposed and so today superseded by another, Franz Hawlata (pictured below in what I thought was a Rosenkav production picture, but the fashion-magazine advertisement behind him makes me wonder). He was so effortlessly commanding in the Birmingham concert performance that he can't fail to amuse tonight given a bit more directorial help.

I feel sorry that Woldt doesn't get another shot at captivating a large audience, as he did, of course, in the livestreamed film. Here he is once more with Kate Royal's Marschallin in Dietrich mode.

Does it sound disloyal of me to say I wish Royal's cover, too, could have a shot at the Marschallin tonight? Miranda Keys, again on the evidence of the cover performance, would make an opulent Prima Donna. She manages her moment in the sun as the Duenna, too (that's her on the left in the picture further up). She may pop along to the talk, which is good of her, and I hope she'll help us field any more boring Taragate questions (no, audience, please don't).

Finally, another Sophie - a real one, this time, Austrian Sophie Rennert, who stole the show with her interpretation, in flawless English, of Dido's Lament at the Europe Day Concert organised by J (and programmed, to an extent, by me, though this wasn't one of my suggestions for the Greek theme, as Greek it ain't) . Now that it's out on CD, we were able to confirm that there actually isn't a more poised and stylish version anywhere, though since the piece tests the personality of the singer, there are quite a few as good in their own ways. But of course we're talking Baker, Norman, von Otter, so for a young singer to be in that league is really something. Dominic Wheeler, also my suggestion, draws wondrously beautiful and authentic-sounding playing from the European Community Youth Orchestra, too.

Postlude: I've scattered remarks about the results of the Proms Rosenkavalier around the comments, but let's just say that it was very hard work to home in on the fine detail from where I was sitting. The Albert Hall may be good for Wagnerian epic, but not for Straussian comedy done at Ticciati's and Jones's level of sophistication. The real problem was that they chose to reheat a very tight production instead of adapting completely to a Proms semi-staging (as used to happen with Glyndebourne's annual visits).

Though the voices which carried best were Michael Kraus as Faninal and Andrej Dunaev's Italian tenor, Erraught and Royal were splendidly energised, Hawlata went through his own paces which seemed to bear no relation to anyone else's - he was relaxed, but I sorely missed Woldt - and Alder began a bit nervously but went on to make wonderful sounds towards the end. Here she is in one of Chris Christodoulou's photos being 'horse-dealt' chez Faninal to the aghastness of Erraught's Octavian as well as the indifference of both Sir Henry Wood and Ochs's bastard son Leopold (Joseph Bader).

*Recent news: Louise was the recipient of this year's John Christie Award. As predecessors include her Marschallin, Kate Royal, Gerald Finley and Allan Clayton, she's deservedly in very good company

Straussian high days and holy days

Tussock time, as in leaping from one pleasure to another, truly began the Friday before last with the annual Europe Day Concert in St John's Smith Square and continued on Sunday and Monday at Glyndebourne. 150th birthday boy Richard Strauss was central to both: for the Rosenkavalier Study Day, obviously, in anticipation of Richard Jones's production opening this afternoon - can't wait - and in the truly surprising component of the European Union Youth Orchestra's yearly marriage with singers from the European Opera Centre (official credit to the European Commission for the concert photos).

I can claim some credit for that, since I advised on the programme, marking the Greek Presidency of the European Union, and most of my Hellenic-themed suggestions were adopted. For practical reasons of orchestral size and the lack of a soprano to fit the Straussian bill, the closing scene from Daphne wasn't possible - I'm still having the Haitink/Popp recording played at my funeral - but EUYO supremo Marshall Marcus did adopt the idea of the extraordinary interlude Strauss composed for his performing edition of Mozart's Idomeneo. With only a fragment of Mozart, 'Torna la pace', at its heart, it's seismic and disturbing; my worries about where it might fit in a programme of plums were dispelled at the two-thirds mark, when gravity was required - how could one not think of Strauss looking back at the First World War, and of Ukraine today? - and the segue into Mozart's sublime Quartet, as good an ensemble as he ever wrote and the first great one in his oeuvre.

Vindicated, too, by my suggestion of conductor, the versatile Dominic Wheeler, who was as refined directing Monteverdi, Handel, Gluck, Purcell and Rameau from the harpsichord as he was spirited, yet still precise, in two fabulous Skalkottas dances and Vaughan Williams's Overture to The Wasps (why some punters had a problem with its Englishness I don't understand. Relax, enjoy the generous melodies). Marshall took responsibility for the engaging spatial effects - Monteverdi brass from the gallery, La Musica advancing to the stage from the centre of the hall,  the three orchestras of Rameau's Dardanus Tambourins making for dazzling music theatre. It was his idea to end with the finale of Offenbach's La belle Hélène, and the singers were so relaxed in conveying its comedy. After which we were happy and proud - at least I speak for myself - to stand for the European anthem, Beethoven's Ode to Joy.

Every year there's a revelation among the singers. Tara Erraught, Glyndebourne's Octavian, stood out in 2009*; last year it was young Viennese tenor Martin Piskorski. Here there were two stars in the making. Another Austrian, mezzo Sophie Rennert, is already the finished article, flawless and very moving in Dido's Lament - so she and Piskorski give Conchita Wurst a run for his/her money; Romanian soprano Monica Bancoș is a baby dramatic soprano, giving old-fashioned divadom to 'Divinités du Styx'. Milanese Elsa Galasio engaged as La Musica, while tenor Camille Tresmontant came into his own as Offenbach's Paris in shades. Wonderful at the end to see the young players embracing and kissing, just like they do in Lucerne.

A few shots from the aftershow drinks in the Footstall. Monica with my old friend, singer and pianist Tom Pope, and musical man about town Yehuda Shapiro (from now on the pics, except the one of Peter and Edward, are mine).

Monica and Elsa flanking Dominic Wheeler,

and Elsa and Sophie (a dead ringer for Martine McCutcheon, and a rather better singer).

Can't resist this official shot of the world's leading Ochs, our dear Peter Rose, talking to our equally dear Edward Mendelsohn.

And so from one group of promising young artists to another. I was quite excited to learn that soprano, comedienne and presenter Miranda Keys, whom I met when she was covering Jenufa and appeared at that Study Day, was not only singing Marianne the Duenna in Rosenkavalier but also covering the Marschallin. On Sunday, in a day down in Sussex which started grey but turned out beautiful, she sang the Monologue and launched the trio, while two other covers sang Sophie - Louise Alder, stupendous, could go on now - and Octavian - Rihab Chaieb, lovely presence. Their pianist, Matt Fletcher, has just won the Kathleen Ferrier Accompanist's Prize, and brought down the trio from its climax with terrific artistry. Here he is with Miranda on the left and Rihab right (Louise had left by then to move house).

The magic of Glyndebourne never fails, and I was in seventh heaven entertaining, or so it seemed, a very responsive audience with different voice types in the main roles, from the Marschallin's creator Margarethe Siems up to Kiri, Frederica and Lucia (as good a Marschallin as a Sophie, possibly my favourite on disc in both roles). In the morning Raymond Holden set the scene and Mark Everist shed further fascinating light on the French operetta on which it turns out, courtesy of Count Harry Kessler's diaries, Hofmannsthal and Kessler had based the entire scenario.

A superb lunch in Nether Wallop - spicy meatballs, excellent - and chats with Cory Ellison, James Hancox, Lucy Lowe and above all the ever-supportive Christopher Cook, a consummate moderator, all added to the pleasure. Here's CC chatting to singers and accompanist in the Ebert Room.

There was time to spray the singers with my Jo Malone Red Roses cologne, and to dab them with the remains of my rose attar from Kashan. Then at the end the crowds suddenly vanished and, having given my bags to delightful BBC researcher Sinéad O'Neill and her Strauss-knowledgeable partner Nicky to drop off at Pelham House Hotel in Lewes, I wandered the grounds before setting off over the hill to Lewes.

The lakeside, deserted until a couple with dogs appeared in the distance (Gus and Danielle?), had its special magic in mid-May.

The last of the tulips gave a splash of colour in the meadows above

and a lone peony flourished on the other side.

I had to pay homage to the bust of Sir George, who sadly died before the season's start; Gus wrote that he had been listening to Act 1 of Rosenkavalier in the 1965 Glyndebourne recording the night before his death.  Brian Dickie has paid eloquent tribute on The Arts Desk.

Then I inspected the flower beds in the formal garden - iris blooming

and incipient,

a fabulous flock of tulips

and others at the end of the long walk -

before I struck off up the field opposite to inquisitive stares from sheep and lambs.

I've always taken a higher route from the Lewes direction so never realised quite how beautiful this perspective on Glyndebourne and the Downs can be.

A gate at the end leads to the bare and glorious heights

from where, in a blasting wind, trees with raked shadows added features to the bare hills on the other side.

I confess I took a route the wrong side of the golf course and had some retracing of a valley to do

but it was worth it for the moon visible above the trees.

And then a quiet supper and sleep in wonderful Pelham House Hotel, to be greeted the next morning by more clarity from the bedroom window

and off on the 9.15 company bus to film back at the house. Frustrated that the bus filled up before Helene Schneiderman, the Annina who was such vivacious company in Dresden, and the Ochs, Lars Woldt, could get on. There was certainly a buzz outside the theatre before the pre-dress rehearsal, which had been opened to desperate friends and relations who hadn't got tickets. Sitting on a bench before the cameras in the formal garden dominated by the Henry Moore sculpture, I had a luxurious hour to chunter on to Sinéad for a luxurious 90 minute documentary, to be broadcast on BBC Four when it screens the opera on 24 June.

We'll see what they use, but I'm just so glad that with Tony Hall at the helm of the Beeb, the tide may have turned for decent coverage of the arts, and this doc is a real flagship example of good intentions. Coffee with the crew, another bus back to Lewes and back home to prepare the latest Poulenc Carmelites class before pedalling to the City Lit for 4pm. And now a glorious weekend ahead at Glyndebourne: lucky, lucky.

*22/5 Only just found the right year, and this is what I wrote about her: 'Did you know his [Balfe's] Falstaff? I certainly didn’t. (N)Annetta’s cavatina is as good as your average Donizetti number; the Irish mezzo despatched it with sparkling engagement of the audience and a musicality to match Talbot’s'. She looks lovely both in the pictures of that occasion, when she was only 22 - I've closed in on the one of her animation in the Carmen Quintet -

and, indeed, in a fashionplate photo that contradicts a certain journoass's latest piece of rubbish. I wouldn't link to it because I don't want anyone to read the rag in question. I can't stop my mother, but I can try not to feed an all-too visible troll and his paper.

As I've remarked in the comments below, few folk are coming out of Taragate, Dumpygate, call it what you will, with any credit. One treasurable phrase has emerged, applied by La Cieca of Parterre to a certain storm-stirrer: 'hit-whoring windbag'. 'Hit-whoring' will definitely enter my terminology.

Anyway, I've had enough now, just missed a radio summons which I would have resisted anyway, and only want to hear from those who've actually seen the Glyndebourne Rosenkavalier. Which is marvellous: read my more or less uncontroversial, Jones-lovin' Arts Desk review.