Performers Episodes

The Soviet pianist Sviatoslav Richter, as I hope this and the following episode will illustrate, is one of the greatest musicians of the recording era… unsurpassed technical expertise matched with a profound depth of musicality. But those clichés (whilst true) could be applied to a not insignificant number of other players. So why Richter? More than most musicians he was touched by history. Born in 1915 and dying in 1997, he outlived the Soviet Union but his life was utterly entangled with that ...

This episode features a living musician, still very much in his prime… the Dutch cellist, Pieter Wispelwey. So, what prompted me to choose him? Well, a few things. I’ve been a fan for a long while and have been lucky enough to hear him play a number of times over the last three decades. And about 18 months ago the record company Channel Classics released a big box of CDs of recordings he made for the company… and they’re terrific. And Wispelwey is equally at home with music from any of the last ...

Why a conductor? The outcomes of the complicated relationships conductors have with orchestras and ensembles, with record companies and the public; and with composers living and dead, are in themselves interesting… but for the purposes of this show it is the recorded legacy that matters and Antal Dorati’s ranks amongst the finest of his generation. Dorati (1906 - 1988) was a Hungarian Jew who was able to escape Europe as World War Two commenced and he made the USA his home for much of the rest o...

Johann Sebastian Bach’s‘ The Goldberg Variations’ was the only work that Glenn Gould recorded twice. Now, he died only about a year after this recording so it’s not possible to say that he would not have re-recorded other works… but there is something a little haunting that the work that took him from quirky prodigy to global star in 1955 was the one he returned to in the final year of his life. If you are after some background to Gould and the music he made, then please listen to the previous e...

This is the first episode of ‘Classical For Everyone’ devoted to just one musician so I better have some good reasons… apart from just a personal affection for his recordings. In the English speaking world, the Canadian Glenn Gould was amongst the most recognised and popular pianists in the second half of the 20th Century. In fact, even today, over forty years after his death at the age of 50 in 1982 there are not many pianists of similar stature. Ok, so he has enduring popularity. But why is th...