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.

Please Note: Our digital edition does not include the cover mount items or supplements you would normally find with printed copies

Welcome

THIS MONTH’S CONTRIBUTORS

BBC Music Magazine

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The full score • Our pick of the month’s news, views and interviews

THE MONTH IN NUMBERS

SoundBites

RisingStars • Three to look out for…

Fair competitor gives Percy Grainger some Brigg ideas

Also in April 1905…

Doctor going for a song wanted in Cornwall

DÉJÀ VU • History just keeps on repeating itself…

Valerie Coleman • One of the leading voices in American chamber music-making, Valerie Coleman founded the quintet Imani Winds in 1997 and is acclaimed as both a flautist and composer. Her 25-minute Shot Gun Houses will be performed by the Pacifica Quartet and clarinettist Anthony McGill in Pittsburgh and Syracuse in late April.

We reveal who’s recording what and where…

⏪ REWIND • Great artists talk about their past recordings

MyHero • Conductor Vasily Petrenko tells us why the music and humanity of Dmitri Shostakovich so inspires him

To the beat of the drum

FAREWELL TO…

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

Our Choices The BBC Music Magazine team’s current favourites

RPS Music Awards 2023 • Rebecca Franks meets the founders of Manchester Collective, winners of the Ensemble Award, to learn their recipe for success

And the winners are… • This year’s Royal Philharmonic Society Awards recipients

Richard Morrison • Music by exiled composers is still a vital part of our creative culture

The HUMAN TOUCH • As we celebrate Rachmaninov’s 150th anniversary this month, Andrew Green talks with leading musicians who explain why there’s so much more to a composer often derided as nostalgic and melancholic

THE BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE INTERVIEW Kirill Gerstein

East meets west • For Steven Fox, music director of The Clarion Choir, Rachmaninov’s anniversary year presents the perfect opportunity to celebrate the composer’s often overlooked choral music, as he tells Charlotte Smith

Compulsively driven • From the brick-counting Bruckner to Dvořák the avid trainspotter, Steve Wright introduces some of history’s most obsessive composers

Call of the Nile • With its pharaohs, hieroglyphs, mummies and gods, Egypt has long fascinated composers, keen to capture its unique allure, says Claire Jackson

An orchestral odyssey • In the footsteps of Prokofiev and Britten, with assistance from a sprite and an A-list team, American composer Mason Bates has created a new audiovisual guide to the orchestra; he explains all to Tom Stewart

Gstaad Switzerland • The hills are alive with the sound of music in Saanenland, home of the violinist Yehudi Menuhin’s enduring festival, finds Charlotte Smith

Steve Reich • In developing a unique soundworld as he tackles fraught subjects, the American has proved hugely influential, says Claire Jackson

STEVE REICH Life&Times

Sergei Rachmaninov All-Night Vigil (Vespers) • The composer’s love of the music and rituals of the Orthodox Church were distilled in this masterpiece; Daniel Jaffé finds the best recording

Continue the journey… • We suggest five works to explore after Rachmaninov’s All-Night Vigil

A rewarding finale to this reimagined Bach • Phantasm’s revelatory The Well-Tempered Consort trilogy of...