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

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LETTER of the MONTH

Violinist reunited with £250,000 instrument • Historic Tecchler violin returned in covert car park operation after train theft

Principal strings

Sounds of the underground

THE MONTH IN NUMBERS

Rising Stars • Three to look out for…

Sound Bites

Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel makes TV history

Also in December 1943

Violin for sale, no strings attached

DÉJÀ VU • History just keeps on repeating itself…

Eric Whitacre

Studio Secrets • We reveal who’s recording what and where...

REWIND • Great artists talk about their past recordings

Buried Treasure • Flautist Emmanuel Pahud introduces three rarities from his record collection

All together, now!

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 • Classical music must be allowed to borrow from traditional cultures

Handel’s Christmas Gift • It wasn’t intended to be a Yuletide work, but in the 280 years since its premiere, Messiah has become an essential musical accompaniment to the festive season. Paul Riley explores how

Messiah’s capital gains • The oratorio’s charitable role

The trumpet shall sound! • Lift up your heads for a Handel Messiah near you this Christmas

Andreas Scholl and Tamar Halperin

Milestones on disc • Scholl’s recording highlights

Here is the little door • Our annual tradition of commissioning a new carol continues with Owain Park’s setting of an evocative poem by Frances Chesterton

Fire and ice • Michael Beek snuggles up with Mimi and the Mountain Dragon, the BBC’s enchanting musical tale that lights up the small screen this Christmas

Safe and sound • The EMI Archives in Middlesex guard some of music’s most valuable assets. Simon Heighes gains rare access to explore the treasures stored within

Cold comfort • Captain Scott’s gramophone

Raising voices • Dozens of parish churches foster and maintain magnificent music traditions despite a lack of money, a shallow talent pool and often apathetic clergy. Richard Morrison meets their music directors

O Come, All Ye Faithful! • Hear the seven choirs featured here in action this Christmas

Bah!humbug! • What horrors in the hall cause musicians to see red? Nine performers reveal what it takes to bring out their inner Scrooges...

Exit stage left • When performers flip

Opera in the Quarry Austria • Michael Beek encounters Haydn in Eisenstadt and experiences opera on Europe’s largest and most spectacular natural stage

Haydn’s love rival

Mily Balakirev • Although the Russian composer is best known for his influence on others, his own music displays flashes of real genius, says David Nice

Style guide

BALAKIREV Life&Times

Werther Jules Massenet • George Hall chooses the finest recordings of the French composer’s 1892 operatic masterpiece, one of the festive period’s bleaker works

The composer

Passionate and characterful

Three other great recordings

Continue the journey… • A selection of operas to enjoy after listening to Massenet’s Werther

Welcome

Exhilarating accounts of two Czech concertos • This take on...