FREE UK SHIPPING OVER £30!BBC Music Magazine Awards 2016
The winners of the 11th annual BBC Music Magazine Awards, the only classical music awards in which the main categories are voted for by the public, have now been announced at a ceremony at Kings Place, London, hosted by BBC Music Magazine Editor Oliver Condy and BBC Radio 4’s James Naughtie. Conductor Antonio Pappano wins the BBC Music Magazine Recording of the Year Award with Verdi’s Aida, released on Warner Classics. Just when the days of large-scale opera studio recordings were believed to be a thing of the past, Pappano, his soloists and the Orchestra and Chorus of Rome’s Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia headed into the studio for one of Verdi’s longest and most lavish works. Huge in scale, it was undoubtedly one of the most ambitious recording projects of recent years, but one that proved a major triumph. Antonio Pappano told BBC Music Magazine, it was a case of ‘Right place, right time, right singers, right conductor, right orchestra and chorus, right hall’. In the other awards voted for by the public, conductor Sakari Oramo and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra won the Orchestral Award for their thrilling recording of Nielsen’s Symphonies Nos 1 & 3, a fitting tribute to the Danish composer whose 150th anniversary was celebrated in 2015. Tenebrae took the laurels in the Choral Award with its disc of Bruckner and Brahms motets, bringing the British choir an unprecedented third success overall since the BBC Music Magazine Awards began ten years ago. In the Concerto category, British violinist Rachel Podger picked up her second BBC Music Magazine Award for her wonderfully vivacious recording of Vivaldi’s L’Estro armonico collection of concertos, while David Watkin’s Instrumental Award for his disc of JS Bach’s Cello Suites has a certain poignancy to it – the Scottish cellist has since had to give up playing the instrument due to illness. This year’s Vocal and Chamber awards had a European flavour to them. In the Vocal category, French countertenor Philippe Jaroussky wowed the jury and readers alike with his inventively programmed disc of music based on the poems of Paul Verlaine, and the Pavel Haas Quartet from the Czech Republic enjoyed success in the Chamber Award, with their recording of Smetana’s String Quartets Nos 1 & 2. This was a second visit to the BBC Music Magazine Awards for the Pavel Haas Quartet, who won the Newcomer of the Year award back in 2007. Three further awards were voted for by the Jury alone. The DVD Award went to Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites, a startling and stunning production directed by Olivier Py and stylishly filmed at Paris’s Théâtre des Champs-Elysées; Germany’s Schumann Quartet won the Newcomer Award for their immaculately performed disc of Mozart, Verdi and Ives; and, finally, composer Sir James MacMillan picked up the Premiere Award, thanks to Nicholas Daniel’s exceptional performance of his Oboe Concerto. 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 PLEASE CLICK ON THE IMAGES TO VIEW MORE INFORMATION ON EACH TITLE |
Opera Category including DISC OF THE YEAR
 Tchaikovsky The Queen of Spades Misha Didyk Tatiana Serjan Mariss Jansons 'This is a supremely skilful recording of an exciting live performance. The Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra is beautifully shaped and pin-sharp and the singers are vivid and characterful. The chorus is impressive, too, with a sophisticated sound that oozes drama.' | DISC OF THE YEAR! Verdi Aida Anja Harteros Jonas Kaufmann Antonio Pappano 'Sir Antonio Pappano knows his Verdi – as is in evidence in a performance of the Italian's Egypt-inspired opera that is as musically brilliant as it is dramatically convincing. The orchestral playing is scintillating, the starry soloists utterly sublime.' |  Barry The Importance of Being Earnest Barbara Hannigan Katalin Karolyi Thomas Ades 'It's impossible to resist Gerald Barry's riotous adaptation of Wilde's comic play, especially with these performers. By throwing everything in the air, with a dizzyingly sequence of musical styles, borrowings and invention, Barry captures and enhances the essence of this perfect farce to create an inspired opera.' |
Chamber Category
 Bacewicz String Quartets 1, 3, 6 & 7 Lutoslawski Quartet 'Grazyna Bacewicz is the great unsung heroine of post-war Polish music, a brilliant, individual composer who kept the art of the string quartet vividly alive during the bleakest years of Communist rule. The brilliant young Lutosławskis are captivating in the dancing wistfulness of her first, folk inflected quartet, the questing, inventive grace of the 1960s works and the irresistible vivacity of No.3.' | WINNER! Smetana String Quartets 1 & 2 Pavel Haas Quartet 'The Pavel Haas Quartet have already set new standards with their Janácek and Dvorák. Now it's the turn of fellow countryman Smetana, and once again the results are outstanding. Playing of real intensity and vivid detail brings out the drama and intimacy of these two highly personal quartets, and the musicians' innate understanding for the Czech composer's idiom shapes every nuance. It's hard to imagine these recordings being bettered.' |  Lawes The Royal Consort Phantasm 'Charles I's favourite composer, William Lawes, killed at the siege of Chester, shows us why the monarch thought so well of him. The music contains adventurous harmonies, infectious dances, humorous twists and captivating colours, and it's all brought brilliantly to life by the ensemble Phantasm, their sumptuous playing framed by an effortlessly revealing recording. Lawes thoroughly deserves it; this is essential and revelatory.' |
 Anne Boleyn's Songbook Music and Passions of a Tudor Queen Alamire David Skinner 'This inspired project reveals a world of public splendour and private melancholy. In the ill-fated queen's personal playlist are English songs, French chansons, intimate instrumental gems and glorious polyphony from Josquin and Mouton. Alamire achieve a warm, robust sound, while Clare Wilkinson sings the final O Deathe rock me asleep with haunting pathos.' | WINNER! Brahms & Bruckner Motets Tenebrae Nigel Short 'Don't be fooled by the compact dimensions of Bruckner’s motets. They have lofty symphonic ambitions, and Tenebrae and its enterprising conductor Nigel Short match their demands with an ease and economy that’s rarely heard, from the deepest bass to the soaring sopranos. Majestic Brahms, too, with immense power, huge dynamic range and ringing intonation.' |  Taverner Missa Corona spinea The Tallis Scholars Peter Phillips 'Be dazzled by Taverner's astonishing festal mass featuring stratospheric trebles in this recording from Arundel Castle. The Tallis sopranos capture the bright transparency of boys' voices with impressive precision, creating ethereal effects above a flexible cantus firmus. In Phillips's hands the mass unfolds with slow, radiant grandeur: a celestial feast for the ears.' |
 Prokofiev & Shostakovich Cello Concertos Steven Isserlis Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra Paavo Jarvi 'Prokofiev's Cello Concerto, completed during the height of Stalin's Terror in 1938, is here revealed as a great and much underestimated masterpiece. Steven Isserlis is the compelling soloist in this powerful performance, with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony under the everattentive Paavo Järvi, realising the striking inventiveness of Prokofiev's orchestration.' | WINNER! Vivaldi L'Estro Armonico Rachel Podger Brecon Baroque 'Brecon Baroque, founded by Rachel Podger in 2007, illuminates Vivaldi's score in a benchmark performance. In its day, L'estro armonico (‘Harmonic Inspiration') took Europe by storm, showing how string players could outbid opera singers in their expressiveness. To listen to this recording is to enter a brilliant, delicate dialogue between the finest artists.' |  Tchaikovsky & Prokofiev Piano Concertos Kirill Gerstein Deutsches SO Berlin James Gaffigan 'This recording of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto replaces the inauthentic bombast of the familiar final-published score with the composer's favoured version. From the soloist's first entry, sensitively performed by Kirill Gerstein, we discover a lyrical, intimate work, belying its reputation as a hackneyed warhorse.' |
 Mozart Piano Sonatas vol.3 Christian Blackshaw 'After years away, Christian Blackshaw returned to the stage at the top of his game. A Wigmore Hall Mozart series in 2012 revealed his thoughtful artistry, exemplified by this superlative volume, the third in the series. Four varied sonatas and the dark Fantasia in C minor are all played with his hallmark luminous tone, natural grace and authority.' | WINNER! JS Bach Cello Suites David Watkin 'It's very hard to put into words why this recording is so special. One of the finest Baroque cellists at last commits to disc great works he's lived with for many years, knowing as he does so that these are his last recordings (Watkin suffers from a chronic skin condition relating to his fingers, preventing him from playing). This is inspirational solo Bach of the highest order, intimate and exalted, and it's a profoundly moving achievement.' |  Schubert Piano Sonatas 18 & 21 etc Andras Schiff 'András Schiff's Schubert has always been revelatory: the Hungarian pianist's Central European instinct for Schubert's language and, especially, for the song elements within his piano writing, has always provided rich insight. But, turning to Schubert's sonatas on the fortepiano has liberated Schiff into a new lightness of being, opening up compelling areas of fantasy in the composer's work.' |
 CPE Bach Hamburg Symphonies Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra Sakari Oramo 'It can sometimes take a Finnish musician to hear afresh, and to bring new insight into German repertoire. The Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra and Sakari Oramo have renewed the sheer surprise factor in these wonderful little 18th-century symphonies, unleashing the ‘bold and imaginative' character which struck their early listeners so forcibly.' | WINNER! Nielsen Symphonies 1 & 3 Royal Stockholm PO Sakari Oramo 'Sakari Oramo and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra's excellent Nielsen symphony cycle shines with particular lustre in their account of the two least-known works. Both are performed with compelling symphonic purpose, No. 1 with a spring in its step and considerable charm and grandeur, while No. 3 has vigour and atmosphere.' |  R Strauss Symphonia Domestica, Die Tageszeiten Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra Marek Janowski 'There are revelations aplenty in this pairing of Strauss's often overlooked Symphonia Domestica with the virtually unknown Die Tageszeiten. Janowski's fresh approach brings out the detail and the drama of the Symphonia, while the Berlin Radio Choir and Symphony Orchestra are in sublime form for the gorgeous Die Tageszeiten.' |
Vocal Category
 Agrippina Graun, Handel, Porpora etc Ann Hallenberg Riccardo Minasi 'As a subject for an opera, Agrippina was the Carmen of the 18th century – beautiful, ruthless, bewitching and power-hungry, her story inspired composers from Handel to Sammartini. Embracing this music, much of it recorded for the first time, the riveting Ann Hallenberg brings Agrippina to gripping life.' | WINNER! Green Melodies francaises sur des poemes de Verlaine Philippe Jaroussky Quatuor Ebene 'This labour of love from Philippe Jaroussky is a beautifully conceived and wonderfully sung collection. Jaroussky collates song settings of Verlaine, that most musical of poets, from composers as diverse as Debussy, Massenet, Charles Trenet and Varčse, along with charming rarities in an enticing treasure-trove.' |  Beethoven Lieder and Bagatelles Werner Gura Christoph Berner 'Beethoven's heart and mind is uncovered as his song-cycle An die ferne Geliebte is put within the context of an interleaving of the composer's songs and bagatelles. Werner Güra's beautifully enunciated tenor recreates the spiritual struggle in Beethoven's songs, and Christoph Berner's fearless playing, as accompanist and soloist, sets the songs into new and thrilling relief.' |
Other Categories
Premiere MacMillan/Vaughan Williams Oboe Concertos Nicholas Daniel Britten Sinfonia James MacMillan | Newcomers Mozart, Ives, Verdi String Quartets Schumann Quartet | DVD Poulenc Dialogues des Carmelites Patricia Petibon, Sophie Koch, Veronique Gens, Sandrine Piau, Jeremie Rhorer' |