FREE UK SHIPPING OVER £30!BBC Music Magazine Awards 2015
The winners of the BBC Music Magazine Awards 2015 have now been announced and details can be found below, alongisde the original nominations for each category. You can jump to a particular category using the following links:
"The BBC Music Magazine Awards offer the serious and merited celebration of sustained excellence in music-making... the public votes are cast not for superficial glamour but for real and enduring quality". Harry Eyres, Financial Times |
 Venice: The Golden Age Baroque Oboe Concertos Xenia Loffler Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin 'An invigorating programme of Venetian musical highways and byways that blows clean out of the water any hint of Baroque reserve as stunningly gifted oboist Xenia Löffler and Georg Kallweit’s Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin in overdrive bring the music of Vivaldi and his lesser-known contemporaries sparklingly to life.' | Recording of the Year!  Beethoven Piano Concertos 2 & 4 Leif Ove Andsnes Mahler Chamber Orchestra 'In an age when the word ‘journey’ is horribly overused, Leif-Ove Andsnes reminds us what a true heart-and-mind musical journey really is. From its wonderfully expectant, half-improvisatory opening, the Fourth Concerto sounds as though it is being rediscovered, and each fresh discovery leads on to something equally new. Even the slighter Second Concerto surprises and delights.' |  Szymanowski Violin Concertos 1 & 2 Baiba Skride Vasily Petrenko 'Colourful, virtuosic, alert and intelligent: Baiba Skride brings all these virtues and more to Szymanowski. And while competition isn’t lacking, hers is surely now the go-to recording for these concertos. The Latvian violinist seems completely at home in the composer’s sensuous world, as do the sensitive Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and Vasily Petrenko.' |
 Zemlinsky String Quartets 1 & 2 Escher Quartet 'Zemlinsky is a nest of paradoxes: intense yet elusive, opulent but also sensitive and subtle, he can be difficult to grasp on first, or even second hearing. The Escher Quartet achieves a near-impossible balance, especially in the complex Second Quartet, clarifying its structure without betraying its fragile heart, while the Brahmsian First is a joyous surprise.' | Category Winner!  Beethoven Piano Trios opp.70/2, 97 Alexander Melnikov Isabelle Faust Jean-Guihen Queyras 'The Op. 70 No. 2 ‘trio without a name’ has too often lurked in the shadows: here the formidable Faust, Queyras and Melnikov on fortepiano make an indelibly convincing case for it, revealing a work of Apollonian grace and subversive wit. As for their Archduke, has it ever received a performance of such inspired subtlety?' |  Prokofiev Violin Sonatas 1 & 2 Alina Ibragimova Steven Osborne 'Alina Ibragimova’s probing music intelligence and Steven Osborne’s protean muscularity yield the dream team for a pair of war-time sonatas that couldn’t be more different. From the first Sonata’s confiding whispers to the exuberant panache of the Sonata No. 2’s Finale they take everything in their peerless stride. Revelatory.' |
 Birtwistle The Moth Requiem BBC Singers Nicholas Kok 'Birtwistle is scaling new heights just now, and the elegiac Moth Requiem (2012) transports us to a sonic world of beguiling mystery. These singers have his music in their bones, presenting it with precision and sensitivity, be it the stark, monumental Carmen Paschale (1965) a glistening gem of a Lullaby or the dynamic Ring Dance of the Nazarene. ' | Category Winner!  Elgar The Dream of Gerontius BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus Andrew Davis 'Chandos’s invaluable series of neglected 20th-century Italian music here reaches the fascinating and under-appreciated figure of Goffredo Petrassi, his country’s answer to Stravinsky and Hindemith. The performances of two major choral works under Gianandrea Noseda are ideally invigorating and splendidly recorded.' |  Byrd The Three Masses Choir of Westminster Cathedral Martin Baker 'Four choral glories of the Renaissance (Ave verum corpus is also included) performed with a tantalising passionate restraint, fusing ear-tweaking textural detail with a special acuity for harmonic rhythm, spatial sensuality and an emotional imperative that engulfs the listener in a polyphonic web of alluring sound.' |
 Busoni Late Piano Music (3CD) Marc-Andre Hamelin 'Busoni was one of the great free-thinkers of twentieth century music, with a virtuoso’s understanding of the piano. As with Liszt, it’s easy to concentrate on the scintillating, barn-storming elements and miss the serious thinker. Marc-André Hamelin finds both the necessary swagger and the strange, almost recondite poetry – dazzling in parts, ultimately haunting.' | Category Winner!  Dances Bach, Chopin, Granados, Scriabin etc Benjamin Grosvenor 'Fears that this recital would feel diffuse and unfocused are banished by Grosvenor’s Bach, the brilliance of his Chopin and Scriabin, and the poetic delight of the Granados Waltzes. Morton Gould’s Boogie-Woogie encore wraps it up with a flourish; it’s only young Benjamin’s second solo recital, but boy do these fingers dance.' |  Pletnev in Person Beethoven, Schubert, Bach, Chopin etc Mikhail Pletnev 'This is no standard recital from Mikhail Pletnev. The Russian pianist is caught here warming-up, as it were, playing pieces through and trying out the piano in preparation for recording sessions. The results are extraordinary, as Pletnev brings a highly personal approach to unofficial performances that are now released with his authorisation.' |
 Handel Tamerlano Il Pomo d'Oro Riccardo Minasi 'Xavier Sabata’s Tamerlano is thrillingly ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’ in this outstanding account of Handel’s 1724 slice of tyrannical life – recorded in its 1731 re-spray. Cast with unassailable strength (including John Mark Ainsley’s noble Bajazet) the set strikes musical gold in the viscerally engaged and engaging playing of Il Pomo D’Oro.' | Category Winner!  Wagner Die Meistersinger Glyndebourne Chorus & LPO Vladimir Jurowski 'Perhaps the perfectly cast Meistersinger has yet to be recorded – the critics can never agree – but this has to come close, and Gerald Finley’s Hans Sachs is one of the most beautifully sung on any modern recording. Jurowski’s pacing allows Wagner’s score to flow, evading pomposity, in a deliciously detailed recording.' |  Vivaldi L'Incoronazione di Dario Accademia Bizantina Ottavio Dantone 'There are simply no weak links in this classy ensemble, who deliver Vivaldi’s mischievous anti-heroic comedy with panache, from Anders Dahlin’s impeccable coloratura to Sara Mingardo’s frankly gorgeous contralto, whether twined with recorder or viola da gamba. Dantone paces the drama to crisp perfection, making this the most exciting recording to date.' |
 Rachmaninov Symphony no.1 Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Vasily Petrenko 'The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic has achieved extraordinary things under Vasily Petrenko’s leadership, with this Rachmaninov release highlighting their current quality of playing in music that shows the strengths of each orchestral department. The interpretations, too, are marvellous, the music driving constantly onwards in performances that offer consistently vivid and vital music-making.' | Category Winner!  Bruckner Symphony no.9 Lucerne Festival Orchestra Claudio Abbado 'It’s hard to forget that the concert recorded here turned out to be Claudio Abbado’s last. Yet this is not simply a poignant memorial to the late conductor, but one of the finest Bruckner Nines on disc: the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and Abbado bring natural feeling, textural clarity and spiritual intensity to this unfinished masterpiece.' |  Turnage From the Wreckage, Speranza London Symphony Orchestra Daniel Harding 'Speranza – hope, in four movements and four languages, a symphonic outburst of optimism for a bleak world. It’s one of Turnage’s most ambitious orchestral canvases, surging with life, passion and power, and it’s hard to conceive of this world premiere performance being bettered, especially in such a fine live recording.' |
 Christiane Karg Strauss, Wolf, Debussy, Poulenc, Schumann etc Malcolm Martineau 'Recorded live, German soprano Christiane Karg’s July 2012 Wigmore Hall recital was clearly a very special occasion, in which her light-filled voice, musicianship and subtle artistry were demonstrated in a programme ranging widely through the fields of French and German song, superbly accompanied by Malcolm Martineau.' | category Winner!  Stella di Napoli Bel canto arias Joyce DiDonato Riccardo Minasi 'Joyce DiDonato’s love letter to Neapolitan ‘bel canto’ is all about the voice, and as her own ‘star’ shines brightly, what a voice it proves to be. Vocal pyrotechnics hold no terrors, and her creamy mezzo leaves no nuance unturned. Sensitively accompanied by Riccardo Minasi and his Lyon forces, it’s a case of ‘hear Naples…. and live!’.' |  An die Geliebte Beethoven, Strauss, Weber, Wolf etc Julian Pregardien Christopher Schnackertz 'A defining Beethoven An die ferne Geliebte, offset by the warm, ambient glow of lieder by Weber, Wolf and Richard Strauss, is floated exquisitely aloft by the seamless tenor radiance of Julian Prégardien and his outstanding pianist-partner Christoph Schnackertz, captured in exemplary five-channel surround-sound.' |
DVD  Becoming Traviata An intimate and fascinating documentary that invites you to go behind the curtains of one of the world s greatest operas. Natalie Dessay, Louis Langree | Newcomer  CPE Bach Wurttemburg Sonatas Mahan Esfahani | Premiere  Unsuk Chin 3 Concertos Sunwook Kim, Alban Gerhardt, Wu Wei, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Myung-Whun Chung |