BBC Music Magazine

BBC Music Magazine is a must for anyone with a passion for classical music. Classical music connoisseurs and new enthusiast alike will enjoy the fascinating features and reviews of over 120 new works in every issue.

THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORS

Welcome

BBC music MAGAZINE

Have your say… • Write to: The editor, BBC Music Magazine, Eagle House, Colston Avenue, Bristol, BS1 4ST Email: music@classical-music.com

LETTER of the MONTH

Royal Philharmonic Society announces relaunch • Historic music organisation aims to emulate success enjoyed by the National Trust

Royal splendours Major RPS commissions

Commons time for Parliamentary string players

THE MONTH IN NUMBERS

Rising Stars • Three to look out for

Sound Bites

At 84, Richard Strauss writes his Four Last Songs

Also in September 1948

Zimmer gives a bit of vroom for manoeuvre

DÉJÀ VU • History just keeps on repeating itself…

Gabriel Prokofiev

We reveal who’s recording what and where...

REWIND • Great artists talk about their past recordings

Buried Treasure • Lutenist Elizabeth Kenny introduces three recordings from her own collection

The practice problem

FAREWELL TO…

Music to my ears • What the classical world has been listening to this month

READER CHOICE

Our Choices The BBC Music Magazine team’s current favourites

Richard Morrison • The Royal Philharmonic Society could be the mouthpiece we need

The Final Bow • Since its first performance 100 years ago, Elgar’s Cello Concerto has become one of music’s most cherished masterpieces. Cellist Julian Lloyd Webber takes us on a personal tour of this elegiac work

Post-war inspirations • What other works emerged in 1919?

Elgar’s Concerto on disc • Six of the greatest recordings

Cottage industry • Elgar spent just three years at Brinkwells, but during his time in rural Sussex wrote some of his most inspired and intimate works, says Richard Westwood-Brookes

Elgar’s houses

Marc-André Hamelin • The Canadian pianist is renowned for an astonishing virtuosity but, he tells Clemency Burton-Hill, his aim is to play the music as if it has never been heard before

Hamelin on record

It’s good to be Bach • JS Bach has been arranged more than any other composer, says Meurig Bowen, who picks ten of the best reworkings of the Baroque master’s music

Bach the arranger • Tales of transcriptions

TheParentTrap • Did the mothers and fathers of our best-loved composers help or hinder their gifts? Sarah Urwin Jones weighs up the evidence

Family fortunes • Performing dynasties

Sense of an ending • The cadenza is one of the concerto’s longest standing traditions – a chance for the soloist to show off their virtuosity. But how and why did it develop? Jessica Duchen traces its history across the centuries

Perfect wholes • Cadenza-less concertos

Immortal beloveds • Great composers have been depicted in a wide variety of statues, from characterful bronzes to abstract installations. We pick out some notably eye-catching examples

Music Competitions • Competitions are an essential way of discovering the next generation of brilliant performers. Here you can read about a selection of the finest from around the world

The International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition

Singapore International Violin Competition

Doha Qatar • Oliver Condy experiences a Middle Eastern capital city undergoing radical transformation, with a burgeoning musical culture at its heart

Dana Al Fardan • Qatar’s star composer

Aaron Copland • The American composer should be...