CONTENTS Volume 99 Number 1208 EDITORIAL Phone 020 7738 5454 email gramophone@markallengroup.com EDITOR AND PUBLISHER Martin Cullingford DEPUTY EDITOR Sarah Kirkup REVIEWS EDITOR Tim Parry ONLINE CONTENT EDITOR James McCarthy SUB EDITOR David Threasher SUB EDITOR Marija uric´ Speare ART DIRECTOR Dinah Lone PICTURE EDITOR Sunita Sharma-Gibson AUDIO EDITOR Andrew Everard EDITORIAL ADMINISTRATOR Libby McPhee EDITOR IN CHIEF James Jolly WITH THANKS TO Charlotte Gardner and Edward Christian-Hare ADVERTISING email advertising@gramophone.co.uk COMMERCIAL MANAGER Esther Zuke / 020 7501 6368 SENIOR ACCOUNT MANAGER James McMahon / 07967 169001 SUBSCRIPTIONS AND BACK ISSUES 0800 137201 (UK) +44 (0)1722 716997 (overseas) subscriptions@markallengroup.com PUBLISHING HEAD OF MARKETING AND DIGITAL STRATEGY Luca Da Rè / 020 7501 6362 MARKETING MANAGER John Barnett / 020 7501 6233 GROUP INSTITUTIONAL SALES MANAGER Jas Atwal PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Richard Hamshere / 01722 716997 PRODUCTION MANAGER Kyri Apostolou CIRCULATION DIRECTOR Sally Boettcher / 01722 716997 SUBSCRIPTIONS MANAGER Bethany Foy / 01722 716997 EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Martin Cullingford MANAGING DIRECTOR Paul Geoghegan CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Ben Allen CHAIRMAN Mark Allen www.markallengroup.com GRAMOPHONE is published by MA Music Leisure & Travel Ltd, St Jude’s Church, Dulwich Road, London SE24 0PB, United Kingdom. gramophone.co.uk email gramophone@markallengroup.com or subscriptions@markallengroup.com ISSN 0017 310X. The December issue will be on sale from December 8; the January 2022 issue will be on sale from January 5 2022 (both UK). Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of statements in this magazine but we cannot accept responsibility for errors or omissions, or for matters arising from clerical or printers’ errors, or an advertiser not completing his contract. Regarding concert listings, all information is correct at the time of going to press. Letters to the editor requiring a personal reply should be accompanied by a stamped addressed envelope. We have made every effort to secure permission to use copyright material. Where material has been used inadvertently or we have been unable to trace the copyright owner, acknowledgement will be made in a future issue. UK subscription rate £70. Printed in England by Precision Colour Printing. North American edition (ISSN 0017-310X): Gramophone, USPS 881080, is published monthly with an additional issue in October by MA Music Leisure & Travel Ltd, St Jude’s Church, Dulwich Road, London SE24 0PB, United Kingdom. The US annual subscription price is $89. Airfreight and mailing in the USA by agent named WN Shipping USA, 156-15, 146th Avenue, 2nd Floor, Jamaica, NY 11434, USA. Periodicals postage paid at Jamaica NY 11431. US Postmaster: Send address changes to Gramophone, WN Shipping USA, 156-15, 146th Avenue, 2nd Floor, Jamaica, NY 11434, USA. Subscription records are maintained at MA Music Leisure & Travel Ltd, Unit A, Buildings 1-5 Dinton Business Park, Catherine Ford Road, Dinton, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP3 5HZ, UK. Air Business Ltd is acting as our mailing agent. © MA Music Leisure & Travel Ltd, 2021. All rights reserved. No part of the Gramophone may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission of the Publishing Director. Please read our privacy policy, by visiting privacypolicy.markallengroup.com. This will explain how we process, use & safeguard your data. The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of the editor or Gramophone. Advertisements in the journal do not imply endorsement of the products or services advertised. EDITOR’S CHOICE The 12 most highly recommended recordings reviewed in this issue RECORDING OF THE MONTH Jonathan Freeman-Attwood finds huge enjoyment in Sabine Devieilhe’s wonderfully sung album of Bach and Handel, with superb support from Pygmalion and Raphaël Pichon ORCHESTRAL Gianluca Cascioli’s inventive Beethoven; Haydn from Heidelberg; more Florence Price; exciting Prokofiev and Schnittke from Cleveland CHAMBER Draeseke string quartets; enterprising Korngold; impressive Schubert from the Wigmore Soloists INSTRUMENTAL Fabio Biondi plays Bach; Stephen Hough’s Chopin Nocturnes; Alexander Gadjiev live VOCAL Bach cantatas from the Dunedin Consort; Vaughan Williams folk songs; American songs OPERA Massenet’s Thaïs on DVD; a Rosner rarity JAZZ & WORLD MUSIC Reviews from our sister titles Jazzwise and Songlines ONLINE CONCERTS & EVENTS Mark Pullinger surveys a rich array of web treats REISSUES Friedrich Gulda’s complete Decca recordings BOX-SET ROUND-UP REPLAY Rob Cowan on recent releases from the archives CLASSICS RECONSIDERED David Gutman and Richard Whitehouse revisit Munch’s 1959 Organ Symphony from Boston BOOKS Mackie on Mozart; a new look at Myaskovsky GRAMOPHONE COLLECTION Richard Lawrence trawls through recordings of Strauss’s Arabella and recommends his top choice REVIEWS INDEX FOR THE RECORD All the latest classical music news SAINT-SAËNS, THE ECLECTIC As we approach the centenary of the composer’s death, Tim Ashley celebrates the pioneering originality of this complex, contradictory figure REDEFINING FINNISH SOUND As Hannu Lintu prepares for a new chapter as an opera conductor, he talks to Andrew Mellor about his meticulous work with the Finnish Radio SO CRITICS’ CHOICE We ask our expert writers each to recommend their favourite recording from the past year – if you’re looking for gift ideas, look no further! CHRISTMAS ROUND-UP Andrew Mellor once again reviews, with warmth and humour, the seasonal recordings for 2021 MUSIC COMPETITIONS GUIDE Our annual guide, outlining the top competitions in the UK, Europe, the US and even further afield MUSICIAN AND THE SCORE Richard Bratby talks to conductor Susanna Mälkki about her view of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra ICONS Gavin Dixon remembers Evgeny Svetlanov – master of the Russian orchestral sound CONTEMPORARY COMPOSER Jonathan Shipley explores the uncategorisable output of American composer Caroline Shaw WHAT NEXT? Peter Quantrill takes Berg’s Wozzeck as the starting point for a military-infused aural journey HIGH FIDELITY NEW RELEASES MY MUSIC Richard Carpenter talks about how a childhood of piano music and listening to close-harmony records led to his unique Carpenters arrangements 4 GRAMOPHONE DECEMBER 2021 gramophone.co.uk