Composer Bryce Dessner joins Gramophone Editor Martin Cullingford for this week's podcast to talk about his new album for Sony Classical, featuring solo works performed by a superb line-up of star soloists.

A new album mapping 10 years of string writing, Anna Clyne's Shorthand takes its name from a concerto for cello and strings, performed on the album by Yo Yo Ma. Hattie Butterworth meets Anna to speak about this new project, as well as her BBC Proms commission and the impact of words, poetry and spirituality on her writing. 

For their debut Harmonia Mundi release as a duo, pianists Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy have recorded two works by Schubert, the great Fantasy in F minor and the Divertissement à la Hongroise, and, in between, a work they commissioned, Trompe-l'oeil by the Russian composer Leonid Desyatnikov (b1955), who has said of his piece, 'You can envisage it as the follow-up, or the rough draft of Schubert's Fantasy. Something incomplete. Like a study for a composition that's been abandoned en route.'

James Jolly went to visit Pavel and Samson, partners both off stage and on, at their home in North London recently to talk about the art of piano four-hands …

Clare Hammond's new album is a wonderful recital of works by Hélène de Montgeroult. Gramophone's Editor Martin Cullingford recently caught up with the pianist to talk about what drew her to this French composer's neglected music. 'Hélène de Montgeroult - Études' is available now on the BIS label.

Chandos was named Gramophone's Label of the Year at the 2022 Gramophone Classical Music Awards last month – a perfect excuse for a series of podcasts focusing on some of the label's key artists. And the pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet would certainly count as one, with complete cycles of the Beethoven piano sonatas and concertos, the piano works of Debussy, the Prokofiev and Bartók piano concertos, a cycle of the Haydn piano sonatas as well as the Mozart piano concertos to his name.

Gramophone's Editor Martin Cullingford caught up with Jean-Efflam Bavouzet recently to talk about his relationship with Chandos and the role recording has played in his career.

The violinist and cellist have recorded Brahms's Double Concerto with the Czech Philharmonic conducted by Manfred Honeck, plus Clara Schumann's Piano Trio in G minor for which they are joined by Lambert Orkis at the piano. Gramophone's Editor Martin Cullingford caught up with them to discuss their collaboration on this new album, released today on Sony Classical. Gramophone Podcasts are produced in association with Wigmore Hall. 

The American composer Mason Bates wrote Philharmonia Fantastique to a commission from a host of major US orchestras (Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Dallas Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony and the American Youth Symphony). It was recorded for Sony Classical by the Chicago SO under Edwin Outwater and released earlier this year. Now an animated film by Academy Award-winning sound designer Gary Rydstrom, and featuring the work of Jim Capobianco, has been made using the same soundtrack. (It will be available from November 4 to rent or purchase in 4K and surround-sound on the AppleTV app and to stream on Apple Music.)

Gramophone's Editor, Martin Cullingford, spoke to Mason Bates about the work and the new animated film.

Gramophone Podcasts are made in association with Wigmore Hall, sponsors of the 2022 Chamber Award. 

Xavier de Maistre – with Cologne's WDR Symphony Orchestra conducted by Nathalie Stutzmann – has recorded harp concertos by Reinhold Glière and Alexander Mosolov for Sony Classical, supplemented by a couple of transcriptions of Russian ballet music. James Jolly spoke to the French harpist about the album, the two women harpists who inspired the works and the detective work involved in resurrecting the Mosolov concerto.

Gramophone Podcasts are made in association with Wigmore Hall, sponsors of the 2022 Chamber Award.

A recording of the Australian composer Amanda Lee Falkenberg's The Moons Symphony has just been released in Dolby Atmos sound by Signum. Featuring London Voices and the London Symphony Orchestra, the work is conducted by Marin Alsop. For this podcast, Gramophone's James Jolly spoke with Amanda in Dubai and Marin in Vienna about the project, its ambitious programme and the challenges of recording such a large-scale work in the middle of the pandemic.

Gramophone Podcasts are made in association with Wigmore Hall, sponsors of the 2022 Chamber Award. 

This week's Gramophone Podcast sees flautist Sharon Bezaly talk to Editor Martin Cullingford about her new and wide-ranging album of concerto collaborations called 'Synergy', available today on BIS. Gramophone Podcasts are presented in association with Wigmore Hall.

The Gramophone Classical Music Awards 2022 were unveiled last night. Editor-in-Chief James Jolly, Editor Martin Cullingford and Reviews Editor Tim Parry explore and celebrate all the winning artists and albums, complete with musical excerpts. 

Following last year's Gramophone Award-winning solo Verdi album, Ludovic Tézier returns to the composer – and a couple of others – for his latest Sony Classical  release, 'Insieme' (Together). Joining Jonas Kaufmann he explores some of the great tenor-baritone duets of the operatic repertoire with the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano. He talks to Gramophone Editor-in-Chief James Jolly.

This autumn marks five year since the death of the baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky, aged just 55. To mark this sad anniversary Decca Eloquence has gathered together the 11 recital programmes he recorded for Philips following his sensational triumph at the 1989 Cardiff Singer of the World competition, one that launched his live and recorded career. Anna Barry was the producer of all of Hvorostovsky's recordings for Philips, and for this week's edition of the Gramophone Podcast she joined Editor Martin Cullingford to look back at a glorious voice and a fine artist.

Mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená speaks to Gramophone Editor Martin Cullingford about her new album, 'Czech Songs', which features composers Bohuslav Martinů, Antonín Dvořák, Hans Krása and Gideon Klein, and for which she's joined by the Czech Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle. 'Czech Songs' is out now on Pentatone.

Lucie Horsch's new album, Origins, begins with the bebop of Charlie Parker before taking us on wide-ranging and diverse journey embracing Bartók, Piazzolla, and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, with a particular focus on folk music. The Dutch recorder player joined Editor Martin Cullingford on this week's Gramophone Podcast to talk about the release, which will be available on Decca next Friday.

The forthcoming album from Bjarte Eike and the Barokksolistene explores the world of Restoration London, when musicians, actors and art forms all mingled creatively in the backrooms of English pubs. Eike joins Gramophone Editor Martin Cullingford to tell us more about the recording. Gramophone Podcasts are published in association with Wigmore Hall.

Guitarist Plínio Fernandes's debut album for Decca Gold, 'Saudade', is a very personal album drawing on his Brazilian roots. From music at the heart of the classical guitar repertoire such as Villa-Lobos's Five Preludes to arrangements of popular songs, it's a wonderful portrait of both Fernandes as an artist and of the guitar's place in Brazilian musical life. Gramophone's Editor Martin Cullingford met up with him.

Gramophone Podcasts are in association with Wigmore Hall.

Edward Seckerson joins the Gramophone Podcast to talk to Editor Martin Cullingford about the music, recordings and greatest interpreters of Mahler

The tenor Jonathan Tetelman has signed an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon, the first fruit of which is a solo album called, simply, 'Arias'. James Jolly caught up with him by video call as the tenor prepared for a concert in Stockholm. They spoke the day 'Arias' was released.

For 'Arias', Jonathan Tetelman was joined by the Orquesta Filarmonica De Gran Canaria conducted by Karel Mark Chichon in some of Italian and French opera's favourite numbers, including a role Tetelman has performed to great acclaim, Paolo in Riccardo Zandonai's Francesca da Rimini.

During holiday periods, we occasionally return to past podcasts, and this week, prompted by the news that he is about to release a new album inspired by an encounter with György Kurtág, we revisit a conversation from September 2021 with the Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson. 

James Jolly caught up by video call with the pianist at his home in Iceland just a few days after Ólafsson's triumphant debut at the 2021 BBC Proms to talk about the album 'Mozart & Contemporaries' which gathers music by CPE Bach, Galuppi, Cimarosa and Haydn around the great Wolfgang Amadeus.

During holiday periods, we occasionally revisit past podcasts, and this week, prompted by the announcement that Andrew Nethsingha will be succeeding James O'Donnell as Organist and Choirmaster of Westminster Abbey, we return to a conversation from November last year.

Editor Martin Cullingford was joined by Andrew, Director of the Choir of St John's College, Cambridge to discuss the choir's new album on Signum, 'The Tree' - as well as the recent announcement that the choir will soon welcome female voices for the first time in its history. 

Eloquence has just issued two box sets, 'Paul Paray: The Mercury Masters', 45 CDs in all, which gather together the recordings made for Mercury between 1953 and 1962. The French conductor (1886-1979) created a magnificent ensemble during his ten years as the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's Music Director, and their partnership became one of the cornerstones of the Mercury Living Presence catalogue. Rob Cowan, Gramophone's expert on archive recordings, spoke to James Jolly for this podcast about the recordings and Paray's very special art.

Gramophone's Orchestra of the Year Award is the only prize voted on by readers. To help you choose this year's winner, James Jolly spoke to two of Gramophone's regular contributors about five orchestras each, and in this second of two podcasts, Andrew Mellor gives his perspective on ensembles from Hungary, France, Norway, the UK and one that draws its players for over 40 different nationalities. The Orchestra of the Year Award is presented in association with Apple Music.

Gramophone's Orchestra of the Year Award is the only prize voted on by music lovers, and to help you decide on 2022's ensemble, James Jolly spoke to two of our regular contributors about five orchestras each. In the first of two episodes, Rob Cowan gives his perspective on ensembles from Austria, the Czech Republic, England, the USA and Germany. The Orchestra of the Year Award is presented in association with Apple Music, and you can listen to complete recordings of the works discussed in the special lossless playlist at our website.

The American tenor Nicholas Phan has just released an album of protest songs, many from the 1960s by legendary singer-songwriters like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Pete Seeger and Malvina Reynolds. It also contains a new work by Errollyn Wallen. 'A Change in Gonna Come', featuring Palaver Strings, and a couple of guest appearances by Farayi Malek, is just out from Azica.

James Jolly talked recently to Nicholas Phan about the album, and also about another song project that he's currently in the studio working on …

Nico Muhly's Stranger, premiered in 2020, gives its name to a new album from Avie featuring the tenor Nicholas Phan. The album also includes two earlier works, Muhly's Lorne ys my likinge, written as a companion piece to Benjamin Britten's Abraham and Isaac and similarly scored for countertenor, tenor and piano (for which Phan is joined by countertenor Reginald Mobley and pianist Lisa Kaplan), and Impossible Things, setting poems by CP Cavafy, and featuring a solo violin and ensemble: on the new recording, The Knights, conducted by Eric Jacobsen with Colin Jacobsen taking the solo violin role. 

James Jolly caught up by video call with Nicholas Phan in San Francisco and Nico Muhly in New York to talk about the album, and how Stranger came into being.

Andrew Mellor is a former Gramophone Reviews Editor who now lives in Denmark where he pursues a career as a freelance journalist with a special focus on things Nordic, and he's still very much part of the Gramophone family as a regular contributor to the magazine. James Jolly caught up with him recently to talk about his new book, The Northern Silence, his passion for Nordic culture and the differences between the various countries he writes about. The Northern Silence is published by Yale University Press, and is just out. The recording of Sibelius's Tapiola is by the Helsinki PO and Leif Segerstam (Ondine).

Alexander Ullman's new album featuring Liszt's Piano Concertos Nos 1 and 2 and the Sonata in B Minor, is released today on Rubicon Classics. The Award-winning pianist joined Gramophone's Editor Martin Cullingford to explore this extraordinary music, its beauty and its challenges.  

The Canadian violinist James Ehnes has his own string quartet for which he's joined by fellow violinist Amy Schwarz Moretti, viola-player Richard Yongjae O'Neill and cellist Edward Arron, and they've released the final instalment in their series of recordings for Onyx of the Op 74 and 95 quartets and all the late quartets. Their final volume includes the A minor, Op 132 and the F major, Op 135.

James Jolly caught up with James Ehnes by video call in Bergen, where he was recording the Nielsen Violin Concerto with Edward Gardner and the Bergen Philharmonic, to talk about how he formed the quartet, and their journey through the quartets of Beethoven. 

Anne-Sophie Mutter premiered John Williams's Second Violin Concerto, written for her, in Boston in July 2021 and DG recorded the work shortly after. One of the most listened-to composers on the planet, thanks to his peerless film scores, Williams has long been drawn the concerto as a form, and has written for many great musicians, including Gil Shaham and Yo-Yo Ma. 

James Jolly caught up with John Williams by phone earlier this year to talk about the new violin concerto, Williams's concert music and his love of conducting. 

John Williams features on the cover of the July issue of Gramophone, out on June 10. Andrew Farach-Colton writes about Williams's concert music and we review the new DG recording of the Second Violin Concerto as well as Yo-Yo Ma's new Sony Classical recording of the revised version of John Williams's Cello Concerto.

Helen Charlston has recorded her first entirely solo album for Delphian, for which she was joined by the theorbo player Toby Carr. 'Battle Cry: She Speaks' combines music of the 17th century with a new work written for her by Owain Park, 'Battle Cry', which gives the album its title.

James Jolly caught up with her to talk about the album and find out about what's coming up from this much sought-after young singer.

A BBC New Generation artist, Helen won First Prize in the 2018 Handel Singing Competition and was a Rising Star of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment for 2017-19.

Her first album for Delphian, mainly of duets with her soon-to-be-husband Michael Craddock, was 'The Isolation Songbook', warmly welcomed by Gramophone's Alexandra Coghlan who wrote that 'the results are varied, from comic miniatures to distilled dramas and contemplative outpourings, but together add up to a recital that's hard to resist, at once fresh and profoundly familiar'.

Gramophone Podcasts are presented in association with Wigmore Hall.

Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers's new album, 'Shining Night', takes listeners on a musical journey through the passing of a day - via Villa-Lobos, Leo Brouwer, Bach and even Elvis - much of it in the company of guitarist Jason Vieaux. She talks to Gramophone's Editor Martin Cullingford about how she developed this wonderful programme. A Gramophone Podcast presented in association with Wigmore Hall.

Jakub Józef Orliński was Gramophone's Young Artist of the Year in 2019 and in the three years since has established himself as one of the world's leading countertenors. An exclusive Erato artist, he's made a trio of recordings of Baroque music, but his new album, 'Farewells', for which he's partnered by Michał Biel, features a selection of Polish art songs that ranges over two centuries. James Jolly caught up with Jakub Józef Orliński by Zoom to talk about 'Farewells' and how he chose the songs for the album.

Gramophone Podcasts are presented in association with Wigmore Hall.

Since winning BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2012, aged 15, Laura van der Heijden has enjoyed a career as a cellist to watch. She's a Chandos artist, recording both as a soloist and also as part of Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective. This month she makes her concerto debut with an album of three British cello concertos, Frank Bridge's Oration, Sir William Walton's Cello Concerto (the work she played for the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition) and Cheryl Frances-Hoad's new cello concerto, Earth-Sea-Air. She is joined by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth. James Jolly recently went to speak to Laura about the new release.

You can also hear Cheryl Frances-Hoad's cello concerto, Earth-Sea-Air, at the BBC Proms on Friday, July 26 joined by the same performers as on the new recording.

Gramophone Podcasts are presented in association with Wigmore Hall. 

The 2022 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition launches on Tuesday, April 5 with its preliminary rounds in London. Between then and April 10, some of the world's most impressive young ensembles will be performing in front of an impressive jury until one is awarded first prize, and the guarantee of a glowing future.

James Jolly went to Wigmore Hall to talk to the Hall's Director John Gilhooly and Hélène Clément, the viola-player of the Doric Quartet, to learn about the competition and how the jury reaches its verdict. We hear excerpts from the Alpha Classics recordings by the 2018 winners, the Esmé Quartet (in music by Beethoven and Bridge) and the 2015 winners, the Van Kuijk Quartet (in music by Schubert).

Gramophone Podcasts are presented in association with Wigmore Hall. 

Gramophone Podcasts are presented in association with Wigmore Hall. 

A recording of Drone Mass by the late Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson is released today by Deutsche Grammophon, performed by Theatre of Voices and ACME, and conducted by Paul Hillier. In this week's Gramophone podcast, Hillier joins Editor Martin Cullingford to recall the creative process of working with Jóhannsson, and to explore this fascinating work and the experience of recording it. Gramophone Podcasts are produced in association with Wigmore Hall.

James Jolly met up with Martin to talk about the album, the connections it makes and his admiration for the work and playing of the American pianist Earl Wild.

Gramophone Podcasts are given in association with Wigmore Hall.

Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande was recorded for Harmonia Mundi, following performances directed by Daniel Jeanneteau at the Opéra de Lille last March. François-Xavier Roth conducted his period-instrument ensemble, Les Siècles, with Julien Behr and Vannina Santoni singing the title-roles. James Jolly caught up with the conductor by Zoom to talk about the opera.

Gramophone podcasts are given in association with Wigmore Hall.

This week's Gramophone Podcast sees pianist Can Çakmur join Editor Martin Cullingford to talk about the latest album in his series for the BIS label in which he pairs works by Schubert with music by composers inspired by him - in this instance Ernst Krenek. As well as introducing Krenek's Second Sonata, he also talks about the composer's completion of Schubert's Piano Sonata in C Major, D 840.

For this week's Gramophone podcast, Editor Martin Cullingford is joined by violinist Daniel Hope to explore his new album 'America', available now on the Deutsche Grammophon label 

Leonidas Kavakos's recording of the complete Bach Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin is newly released on Sony Classical. In today's Gramophone Podcast he talks to Editor Martin Cullingford about these extraordinary works.