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July highlights from EMI and Virgin Classics Spotlight release Also new this month The British Composers Guide to Britain This bright and breezy guide takes us in 50 stops from London, round Essex and East Anglia, up to Scotland, then – via Wales and the border counties – to the west country and the south coast. Finally, back to the capital, and a quiet diminuendo as we drift down the Thames. Rossini: William Tell Antonio Pappano Antonio Pappano and the choir and orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia present Rossini’s final French opera seria, William Tell, recorded live in concert last autumn in Rome. Canadian baritone Gerald Finley leads a stellar international cast boasting tenor John Osborn, mezzo Marie-Nicole Lemieux, and sopranos Elena Xanthoudakis and Malin Byström in the story of Switzerland’s legendary founding fathers and the courageous folk hero forced to shoot an apple from his son’s head. “There is nothing quite like Rossini played by Italian musicians, as Pappano’s Santa Cecilia Stabat Mater demonstrated four years ago. This William Tell promises to be even more of a highlight.” The Sunday Times Britten, Berkeley & Rubbra Amongst a host of première recordings, this set collects for the first time the 1948 scenes from Grimes (with original cast and conductor), the 1947 Glyndebourne Lucretia (also under Goodall), and the early HMV recordings of the two sonnet cycles by Pears. Alongside those works and Britten’s two concertos are fascinatingly set contemporaneous recordings of Rubbra and Berkeley. Arthur Bliss This enthralling five-CD conspectus opens with the symphony that established Bliss’s name in 1922 and goes on to survey his ballet, film, chamber and vocal music in authoritative recordings, many of them attended and endorsed by the composer. The final disc shows Bliss as unmatched conductor of his own music and Dame Joan Sutherland’s first studio recording, the Song of Welcome. Best of British The best of British music: after a disc of such evergreen light favourites as Elizabethan Serenade and the Dambusters March, Sir Richard Rodney Bennett takes us from the dizzy displays of Billy Mayerl to the dark despair of Constant Lambert. The late Richard Hickox reveals the charm of the English miniature and the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge in 19th - and 20th-century anthems. Discover more… www.emiclassics.co.uk www.youtube.com/emiclassics www.facebook.com/emivirginclassics www.twitter.com/emiclassics
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Sounds of Amerıca Gramophone’s guide to the classical scene in the US and Canada Focus Weighing up the Pulitzer Prize for Music – page I » The Scene Musical highlights from across North America – page IV » Reviews The latest CD and DVD releases – page IX » Zhou Long accepts the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his opera Madame White Snake Poisoned Pulitzer? A new CD of Pulitzer Prize-winning works prompts Joshua Kosman to scrutinise the reputation of this controversial award The definitive word on the Pulitzer Prize for Music was, by some reckonings, delivered by Charles Ives in 1947, when his Third Symphony was honoured nearly half a century after being written. “Prizes are for boys,” he is supposed to have growled as he gave the prize money away. “I’m grown up.” Not a very gracious response, perhaps (and, unlike most composers, Ives could afford to scorn the money). But ever since its inception in 1943, the prize – given annually along with 20 other awards in journalism and the arts under the auspices of Columbia University – has been the focus of a certain vein of unease and scepticism. Does it really represent the best that American music has to offer in a given year, or is it merely the outcome of extended bouts of log-rolling and mutual back-scratching? Why do the prize-winning works, year after year, seem to reflect such a limited stylistic spectrum? Is there a good reason why vernacular music – most notably jazz, but also rock, pop and show music – should be excluded from consideration? There’s no denying that even a cursory glance at the list of Pulitzer-winning scores from the past six decades reveals an uneven line-up. It includes a repertory staple such as Copland’s Appalachian Spring alongside an enigma such as Gail Kubik’s Symphony Concertante. Elliott Carter’s Second and Third String Quartets share the roster with music of such obscure names as John La Montaine, Michael Colgrass and Wayne Peterson. Yet for all its shadowy sidelights, the Pulitzer remains the most visible and prestigious honour available to American composers of contemporary classical music. The $200,000 Grawemeyer Award, given annually by the University of Louisville, Kentucky, is more lucrative (the Pulitzer pays $10,000) and boasts a more reliable track record, but it’s known almost exclusively to new-music aficionados; prizes given by the American Academy of Arts and Letters have a similarly “insidery” feel. Only the Pulitzer brings fame and glory from all quarters. “Everybody on my street knows I won the Pulitzer,” said John Adams, who won in 2003 for his memorial to the victims of 9/11, On the Transmigration of Souls. “They don’t know I’ve won the Grawemeyer, or any of these other prizes.” For Chinese-born Zhou Long, who won this year’s Pulitzer for his opera Madame White Snake, the éclat brought by the prize was even more pronounced. “I’m usually regarded as Chinese-American and this is the quintessential American prize,” he said. “This was big news throughout the Asian press; one newspaper called it the American Nobel Prize.” What the Pulitzer doesn’t bring is the guarantee of a firm place in the repertoire, or even frequent performances. If music lovers recognise the titles of some of the victorious works, it’s more likely to be from seeing the phrase “Pulitzer Prize-winning” appended to them, or remembering various trivia snippets (like the fact that Ellen Taaffe Zwilich was the first woman to win the prize), than from actually hearing the music played. So there’s an understandable temptation to believe that buried treasure lies here, waiting to be rediscovered. This seems to be the attitude of Chicago record label Cedille, which has just released www.gramophone.co.uk GRAMOPHONE AUGUST 2011 I

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Sounds of Amerıca

Gramophone’s guide to the classical scene in the US and Canada

Focus Weighing up the Pulitzer Prize for Music – page I » The Scene Musical highlights from across North America – page IV » Reviews The latest CD and DVD releases – page IX »

Zhou Long accepts the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for

Music for his opera Madame White Snake

Poisoned Pulitzer?

A new CD of Pulitzer Prize-winning works prompts Joshua Kosman to scrutinise the reputation of this controversial award

The definitive word on the Pulitzer Prize for Music was, by some reckonings, delivered by Charles Ives in 1947, when his Third Symphony was honoured nearly half a century after being written. “Prizes are for boys,” he is supposed to have growled as he gave the prize money away. “I’m grown up.”

Not a very gracious response, perhaps (and, unlike most composers, Ives could afford to scorn the money). But ever since its inception in 1943, the prize – given annually along with 20 other awards in journalism and the arts under the auspices of Columbia University – has been the focus of a certain vein of unease and scepticism.

Does it really represent the best that American music has to offer in a given year, or is it merely the outcome of extended bouts of log-rolling and mutual back-scratching? Why do the prize-winning works, year after year, seem to reflect such a limited stylistic spectrum? Is there a good reason why vernacular music – most notably jazz, but also rock, pop and show music – should be excluded from consideration?

There’s no denying that even a cursory glance at the list of Pulitzer-winning scores from the past six decades reveals an uneven line-up. It includes a repertory staple such as Copland’s Appalachian Spring alongside an enigma such as Gail Kubik’s Symphony Concertante. Elliott Carter’s Second and Third String Quartets share the roster with music of such obscure names as John La Montaine, Michael Colgrass and Wayne Peterson.

Yet for all its shadowy sidelights, the Pulitzer remains the most visible and prestigious honour available to American composers of contemporary classical music. The $200,000 Grawemeyer Award, given annually by the University of Louisville, Kentucky, is more lucrative (the Pulitzer pays $10,000) and boasts a more reliable track record, but it’s known almost exclusively to new-music aficionados; prizes given by the American Academy of Arts and Letters have a similarly “insidery” feel. Only the Pulitzer brings fame and glory from all quarters.

“Everybody on my street knows I won the Pulitzer,” said John Adams, who won in 2003 for his memorial to the victims of 9/11, On the Transmigration of Souls. “They don’t know I’ve won the Grawemeyer, or any of these other prizes.”

For Chinese-born Zhou Long, who won this year’s Pulitzer for his opera Madame White Snake, the éclat brought by the prize was even more pronounced. “I’m usually regarded as Chinese-American and this is the quintessential American prize,” he said. “This was big news throughout the Asian press; one newspaper called it the American Nobel Prize.” What the Pulitzer doesn’t bring is the guarantee of a firm place in the repertoire, or even frequent performances. If music lovers recognise the titles of some of the victorious works, it’s more likely to be from seeing the phrase “Pulitzer Prize-winning” appended to them, or remembering various trivia snippets (like the fact that Ellen Taaffe Zwilich was the first woman to win the prize), than from actually hearing the music played.

So there’s an understandable temptation to believe that buried treasure lies here, waiting to be rediscovered. This seems to be the attitude of Chicago record label Cedille, which has just released www.gramophone.co.uk

GRAMOPHONE AUGUST 2011 I

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