With Christmas approaching fast (as we go to press) you might want to try a little conversion to classical music of some of your friends and family courtesy of a new initiative featuring the London Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor David Parry (no stranger to collectors of Chandos’s Opera in English series and Opera Rara’s splendid complete opera sets). It collects the “50 Greatest Pieces of Classical Music” and offers them in new versions, recorded at EMI’s Abbey Road Studio in September. The choice of music is pretty predictable and offers few surprises (except that full works aren’t included and Stanley Myers’s Cavatina from The Deer Hunter isn’t exactly classical music; and if it is, why is it the only piece of film music included?). All the old favourites are here, from Barber’s Adagio, Pachelbel’s Canon, Holst’s Jupiter, Massenet’s Méditation, Johann Strauss’s The Blue Danube, Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik, a Dvořák Slavonic Dance, Fauré’s Pavane to Beethoven’s Egmont Overture and the Rachmaninov Vocalise. Performances are available via iTunes, Amazon (in the UK, US, Germany and France), eMusic and Spotify among others. The next stage in the process must be to fill in the gaps – in other words, the other three movements of Beethoven’s Fifth, or what goes on in the rest of The Planets! Not to mention the entire world of opera which is largely overlooked here. An excellent new venture comes from the cellist Robert Cohen: “Pod Talks”, conversations with some leading figures from the (primarily) arts world. The first talk – 45 minutes without break (how deliciously unfashionable!) – is with Sir John Tusa, broadcaster and former MD of both the BBC’s World Service and the Barbican Centre. Cohen and Tusa’s subjects wander widely, though smoothly, through the issues facing the arts, and primarily music, at the moment. Cohen is a good conversationalist, engages interestingly with Tusa and brings a performer’s perspective to the topic, whether it’s about programming (Tusa excellent here), music in China and Japan, how to engage today’s audiences with their short attention spans to the traditional concert experience, and so on. The conversation works very well because both men are sensitive not only to the emotional experience of listening to music, but also to the social business of experiencing music as part of an audience. I agree totally with their comments about “star” performers, the concert managers’ obsession (particularly in the US) with a tiny pond of soloists from whom they constantly fish, the cult of personality over talent, and the ability of the truly great performers to overcome the effects of age (Tusa is superb on Peter Schreier and Thomas Quasthoff – two magnificent artists who communicate totally whatever they do, regardless of any diminishing vocal quality). Future conversationalists are conductor Sir Mark Elder (bound to be terrific as he’s absolutely the most articulate person I’ve ever met), writer Tariq Aziz, composer and broadcaster Michael Berkeley (a bit of table-turning going on here!) and Gillian Moore, head of contemporary music programming at London’s Southbank Centre. Cohen’s Pod Talks are available either to stream from cohenpodtalks.com (which is how I listened) or as a download – perfect for that 45-minute journey when you crave something a little more intellectally engaging. And what’s even better is that the talks are all free. As Los Angeles continues its frenzy over Gustavo Dudamel’s arrival at the helm of the LA Phil, rather overshadowing the magnificent work of his predecessor, and – even more unedifyingly – American music critics are firing off Dudamel versus Alan Gilbert play-offs (chalk and cheese, both the men and their institutions, I’d have thought), a download-only concert turned back the clock for me. It had slipped under the radar but is well worth mentioning a few months late – it’s a live concert recording from 2006 and released during the summer, a DG Concert, of Esa-Pekka Salonen and the LA Phil in a programme entitled “Shadow of Stalin”. The works are Shostakovich’s suite from The Nose, Mosalov’s splendid The Iron Foundry and more Shostakovich – an Act 1 scene from The Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. It’s the sort of imaginative programming from which Philharmonia audiences here in London are reaping the benefit (and thanks to the Philharmonia’s tie-up with Signum is sometimes ending up on disc – the superb Gurrelieder and a forthcoming Mahler Ninth among the treasures). The programme certainly contains no obvious crowd-pleasers, but on musical terms alone there’s more than enough to please any responsive crowd. And the added electricity of a live occasion certainly adds to the fun – the Mosolov is jaw-dropping. I don’t know why, but at this time of the year I often find myself playing recordings of Tchaikovsky’s ballets – wonderful, wonderful music that I for one prefer to enjoy well clear of the theatre (the playing is usually much better for a start and classical ballet doesn’t really do much for me – my loss I feel sure). So I was delighted to see that Sony BMG has recently reissued the series of ballet sets made by the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, conducted by Mark Ermler, and first issued by Conifer (which was subsequently acquired by BMG). There may be more immediately virtuoso accounts or more seemingly colourful performances, but Ermler (a longtime regular with the Bolshoi company and for a short period their music director) brings an innate and totally idiomatic approach to this magnificent music. The two- and three-disc sets are of the three Tchaikovsky ballets (Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker) and there’s also a set of Delibes’s Coppélia – and they’re all available as very well-priced downloads (first stop iTunes – I’ve not seen them elsewhere). An enticing extra on The Nutcracker is Arensky’s delightful Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky. The sound on all the sets is very fine (All Saints, Tooting) and the playing of the Covent Garden orchestra refined and teeming with poetry. Listening, as opposed to listening and watching, only fuels one’s admiration for Tchaikovsky’s seemingly boundless imagination and melodic facility. Andrew Rose and his transfer colleagues at Pristine Classical have been characteristically busy, and their site is well worth checking out for some of the recent transfers of historic recordings. Among some of the latest offerings are Hermann Scherchen conducting Beethoven’s Second and Eighth Symphonies (over which Gramophone of yore got very excited), a 1937 Falstaff from Salzburg conducted by Toscanini, Hugh Weldon conducting Elgar and Ernest Bloch’s Israel Symphony – quite a rarity and definitely on my “Must Listen To” list. The recording I have downloaded and which has really amazed – given its 1939 vintage – with its sound quality is Louis Kentner’s Columbia version of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Piano Sonata. Sure, as Andrew Rose points out in his transfer notes, the piano sound is slightly thin, but the clarity and firmness of the image is amazing. As he says, “Quite simply, this is the best sound quality I’ve heard from any piano recording of its era. For me this remastering truly represents a personal milestone.” I’d second that and say that Kentner’s dexterity and conception of the piece are very fine too. Now, if you are looking for the download equivalent of a stocking-filler (and one that raises money for charity), let me steer you towards a virtuoso and very amusing version of God rest you merry, gentlemen played on a whole host of “percussion” instruments (including squeaky shoes, a sewing machine, bike spokes and running water) and woven together with everyday sounds. Performed by percussionists Evelyn Glennie and Shovell (of the band M People), it was sound-engineered by Pendle Poucher. You can listen to it at presentaid.org/unplugged or in iTunes search for Present Aid Unplugged – it’ll cost a mere 79p and the proceeds will help Christian Aid’s fight against poverty. My Download Essentials is a collection of music appropriate to the season. Few need extra explanation; but perhaps I should point out that Puccini’s La bohème opens on Christmas Eve and Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll was premiered, as a present, on Cosima Wagner’s birthday – also Christmas Eve.

The Essential Download Playlists No 29: Music For Christmas Arnold Commonwealth Christmas Overture LPO / Arnold (Reference) eMusic Bach Christmas Oratorio Gardiner (Archiv) iTunes Charpentier Messe de Minuit pour Noël St John’s College Choir (Chandos) Classicalshop etc Messiaen La Nativité du Seigneur Ericsson (BIS) eMusic Perotin Alleluiah Nativitas Hilliard Ensemble (ECM) eMusic & iTunes Penderecki Symphony No 4, ‘Christmas’ Polish RSO / Wit (Naxos) eMusic & Classics Online Puccini La bohème Beecham (EMI) iTunes & Passionato Rimsky-Korsakov Christmas Eve Moscow SO / Golovschin (Naxos) eMusic & Classics Online Schütz Weihnachtshistorie Summerly (DHM) (Naxos) eMusic & Classics Online Wagner Siegfried Idyll VPO / Solti (Decca) iTunes & Passionato

James Jolly