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

Imogen Cooper awarded Queen’s Medal for Music • Prestigious annual honour is presented to a pianist for the first time

The Queen’s Medal

German organ recital races ahead towards 2022

THE MONTH IN NUMBERS

Sound Bites

Joseph Haydn and Maria Anna Keller tie the knot

Rising Stars • Three to look out for…

Also in November 1760

Stranded ensemble fishes for a journey home

DÉJÀ VU • History just keeps on repeating itself…

Mason Bates

REWIND • Great artists talk about their past recordings

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

Buried Treasure • Percussionist Colin Currie shares some favourite music from his own collection

All the world’s a stage

FAREWELL TO…

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

READERS’ CHOICE

Our Choices • The BBC Music Magazine team’s current favourites

Richard Morrison • Are we distributing classical music’s prizes and honours entirely fairly?

Mighty lioness • Soprano Jessye Norman was an extraordinary singer with an unforgettable presence, beloved and respected by the classical musical world and the black population whom she championed throughout her life. Naomi André looks at her legacy

Jessye Norman at large • A career celebrated in 47 discs

High notes and high praise • Jessye Norman’s life in brief

John Harle

Last Night Panic • A controversial premiere

Legend of the guitar • Andrew Green pays tribute to the late, great Julian Bream, whose supreme talent and colourful personality were combined with an insatiable desire to explore every corner of his instrument’s repertoire

Dream Bream • Six great recordings

Wizards of Oz • Whether drawing on its Indigenous roots, magnificent landscapes or terrifying natural disasters, Australia’s composers past and present often look to their own country for inspiration, says Angus McPherson

Wind power

A trip Down Under • Six recordings to explore

Game of tones • In the last decade, video games have become sophisticated enough to require full orchestral soundtracks. Nick Shave meets some of the composers scoring the music for big-budget titles

Ode to joysticks • Composer Sarah Schachner on scoring hit games

In good company • Composers are a notoriously solitary bunch, but from time to time they like to get out and spend time with one another, as our gallery of photos suggests

Wexford Ireland • Terry Blain visits the home of Ireland’s sole purpose-built opera house and a festival that brilliantly delves into opera’s rarer masterpieces

Local hero John F Kennedy

Joseph Bologne • A supreme sportsman with military ambitions, Bologne was also one of the finest musicians of 18th-century Paris. Paul Riley tells his story

Bologne’s style

BOLOGNE Life&Times

Tosca Giacomo Puccini • Alexandra Wilson plunges into a world of love, lust, deception and violence as she names the best recordings of Puccini’s dramatic opera

The composer

An all-consuming experience

Three other great recordings

And one to avoid…

Continue the journey… • We suggest further Italian operas to explore after Puccini’s Tosca

This Lully premiere is a dazzling tour de force • Cast...