📖 Sunday Culture Crunch 📖
For all your weekend culture needs
Good morning all, hello to new subscribers, and welcome to the Sunday Culture Crunch — my weekend roundup of thought-provoking listening/reading, new music, upcoming events, and recommendations for general culture stuff to look out for over the next few weeks. Happy browsing, and do comment if there’s anything you’d like to see featured in the Crunch!
I’m in Sheffield on 8 December, speaking about Rebecca Clarke at a concert by violist Rachel Roberts — she’ll be playing Clarke’s Viola Sonata, and tickets are available here.
What I’m reading
Errollyn Wallen, Becoming a Composer. I was looking forward to this book because I love Wallen’s music, but this part-memoir was even better than I expected it to be. It’s poetically written (it will come as no surprise to readers that Wallen has penned some of her own opera libretti) and gives such a strong sense of Wallen’s personality. While this book will be especially valuable for pre-existing lovers of Wallen’s music as a lot of attention is given to specific works, it would also be a great springboard to her music. Highly recommended.
Celia Fremlin, The Long Shadow. This is a fun Christmas read with a bite to it. In some ways it’s a gentle thriller about a woman accused of her husband’s murder, but it’s also a novel about how we deal with loss, as well as giving a feminist slant on classic ghost story tropes.
How do we live with music made by problematic artists? Jayson Greene on the relationship between art, artist, and listener.
Memories of Thanksgivings abroad and in between, by writers from the New Yorker.
Kate Lister doles out some necessary truths about “situationships”.
Rachel Syme reviews Barbra Streisand’s new memoir for The New Yorker.
Chris Dalla Riva analyses the impact of Spotify’s royalty system; and artists offer alternative perspectives in the Guardian.
Why a German Remembrance Day remains unthinkable: Katja Hoyer on how Germany commemorates the World Wars.
A string quartet by Anthony Burgess has been newly discovered — premiere forthcoming in Manchester.
New Recordings
Helvi Leiviskä: Orchestral Works. My top pick this week. Finnish composer Leiviskä has been hugely underrated, and a string of new recordings is showing how rich her compositional voice was even in a relatively compact output. Dalia Stasevka leads the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, so of course the performance is brilliant. Symphony No. 2 is the stand-out for me.
Duelles. Violinist Raphaëlle Moreau and pianist Célia Oneto Bensaid give a powerful performance of twentieth-century violin works. The Henriëtte Bosmans and Marguerite Canal Sonatas are particularly well done.
The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. Violinist Kirill Troussov leads the Anima Musicae Chamber Orchestra in an energetic rendition of Astor Piazzólla’s music. For lovers of tango nuevo, and/or imaginative arrangements.
Winterreise. A very polished performance of this Schubert favourite from French tenor Cyrille Dubois, and Anne Le Bozec.
Dohnányi: Piano Concertos. These aren’t particularly well-known pieces, but they’re certainly worth an outing and Ladislav Fanzowitz does them justice here.
Mel Bonis: Entre Soir et Matin. Bonis is one of those composers who took me completely by surprise. I’ve yet to hear something of hers I haven’t loved. Some of the performances here could have a bit more flair, but this is a solid rendition of works including her Suite for Flute, Violin and Piano.
Hans Gál: Concertino for Cello & String Serenade. Gál is having something of a renaissance at the minute, and this disc really shows why. Fantastic music sensitively played.
Operette. Diana Damrau is one of my favourite sopranos, and this operetta collection shows her at her theatrical best.
Natanael Berg: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5. One for the Nordic music fans — Ari Rasilainen leads the Norrkoping Symphony Orchestra in the symphonies of early C20th Swedish composer Natanael Berg.
Christmas album of the fortnight has to go to soprano Lise Davidsen and Christmas From Norway. This is my favourite genre of classical Christmas album, where everything is done incredibly earnestly. Davidsen has a phenomenal voice (you might know her for her Sibelius, Verdi, and Beethoven), and she and the Norwegian Radio Orchestra turn out ‘O Holy Night’ like it’s Wagner and mix carols with Wolf and Sibelius. I love it.
An oldie and a goodie…
Inbal Segev plays Anna Clyne’s DANCE and Elgar’s Cello Concerto. These two concertos make good partners and Segev’s interpretation is exquisite. DANCE is a great introduction to Clyne’s music if you don’t know it yet.
Live Music
Corra Sound give a Christmas concert with Emma Johnson tonight (26 November) in Guildford, and again in Lamberhurst on 10 December.
Pianist Samantha Ege performs in Southampton on 27 November.
Clarinettist Anthony McGill and the Britten Sinfonia play Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Jessie Montgomery, Anthony Davis and George Walker at the Barbican on 29 November.
Francesca Dego is soloist in Sibelius’s Violin Concerto with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Cadogan Hall on 29 November. The programme also includes Ida Moberg, Grieg and Shostakovich.
Also on 30 November, Attacca Quartet perform in Oxford. They’ve put together a great programme, but even if they were playing nothing other than Gabriella Smith’s Carrot Revolution it would be worth going because it’s such a fun piece.
Again on the 30th, Susanna Mälkki leads the London Symphony Orchestra for Hindemith, Rachmaninoff and George Benjamin. Kirill Gerstein is soloist for Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3.
The BBC Symphony Orchestra are performing Alice Mary Smith, Ravel and Beethoven on 1 December, with mezzo Jennifer Johnston conducted by Sakari Oramo.
Composer and turntablist Shiva Feshareki joins guitarist Sean Shibe at Kings Place on 2 December.
Natalie Dessay sings Alma Mahler, Clara Schumann, and Fanny Hensel at the Barbican on 6 December.
DJ and composer Jeff Mills performs Light From The Outside World with the Hallé on 7 December.
Guitarist Alexandra Whittingham is at the Jazz Cafe on 12 December.
And for something completely different…
I’ve been enjoying a subscription from the True Tea Company. Coffee is usually my thing but these folks have expanded my tea horizons. I particularly recommend the Roasted Almonds Fruit Tea.