Presto Music Classical Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

To celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the London Symphony Orchestra's own label, Head of LSO Live Becky Lees, first violinist Maxine Kwok, and principal percussionist Neil Percy talk to James about how the label came to exist, the process of capturing live concerts for release, and their memories of some favourite recordings through the years.

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Another second-album episode! A follow-up not to a trailblazingly exploratory recording (as when we spoke to Heloïse Werner last episode) but to a quietly uplifting one, filled with spirituality and peace. 

The Poor Clares of Arundel appeared on many people's musical radar back in 2020, when their album Light For The World was released into the midst of uncertain and difficult times. Inspired by the daily life of the community of the Poor Clares, and mixing contemporary compositions with ancient plainchant, it was a huge hit - offering reassurance and comfort to listeners in a situation that could hardly have been imagined when the recording was made.

Earlier this year, the Poor Clares' second album was released - My Peace I Give You, drawing particularly on the Canticle of Creation written by St Francis of Assisi, the medieval saint whose lifestyle of deliberate poverty and rejection of worldly goods and activities was the direct inspiration for the formation of the order itself.

We talk to Sister Aelred and Sister Graca of the Poor Clares about the unlikely formation of a relationship between a cloistered convent and a major record label, the role of music in the daily life of their community, and how the releasing of commercial recordings fits in with their calling to a life of seclusion and prayer.

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A discussion of the OUP's recently-published collection of sacred and secular choral works by Black composers, with its editor Dr Marques Garrett - taking in Vicente Lusitano, Undine Smith Moore, R Nathaniel Dett (Dr Garrett's own particular labour of love) and more. 

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Arthur Bliss was one of the most important British musicians of his age. Having served with distinction in the Great War, in which he was both injured and gassed, he subsequently became the most performed British composer abroad. He served as Director of Music at the BBC from 1942-44, and was appointed Master of the Queen’s Music in 1953.
Bliss was a private figure who stated that the only way to get to know him was through his music. Author Paul Spicer took this as his starting point for a pioneering biography which underlines the importance of a reappraisal of the composer’s music.
We had the pleasure of hosting Paul at our store in Leamington Spa, where, in conversation with Andrew Burn, chairman of The Bliss Trust, he not only explained the circumstances behind his writing of the book and how it affected his appreciation of Bliss’s music, but also provided many fascinating insights into the composer’s life, illustrated with excerpts from several of his pieces along the way.
We made an audio recording of their engrossing discussion, which with their permission we are delighted to present here.

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The great Russian Romantic composer Sergei Rachmaninoff declared that his music was "the product of his temperament, therefore Russian", but he spent the final 26 years of life in exile after fleeing Russia in 1917. 

While in exile he composed his late masterpieces including the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and the Symphonic Dances, while also preserving his legendary piano playing for posterity through a series of recordings.

To discuss this fascinating period of Rachmaninoff's life it was a great pleasure to be joined by critic and author Fiona Maddocks, who has explored this period of the composer's life in her highly enjoyable new book 'Goodbye Russia'.

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Earlier this year we saw the release of not one, but two box sets dedicated to recordings by the Minnesota Orchestra under their Hungarian conductor Antal Doráti, recordings made by the Mercury Record Company in the 1950's. 

To discuss the artistic and sonic legacy of these Mono and Stereo box sets I was privileged to be joined not only by record critic Rob Cowan but also by Thomas Fine, the son of the husband and wife team of Robert and Wilma Cozart Fine who produced these recordings and exective producer of these new editions. 

It's a fascinating chat about not only about the oustanding music-making contained within the sets and Doráti himself, but also about the recording process, and the great leap forwards in recording technology that took place in this period.

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Some "concept" albums can seem a little contrived – with themes not so much neatly interwoven as crudely welded onto one another. Not so Emmanuel Despax's new album Après un rêve, which draws together its three main ideas so naturally that it seems as if the album must have sprung from Despax's mind fully formed.

A poetic legacy from his music-loving grandfather meets Emmanuel's own interest in the refined music of the French belle époque (from about the mid-1870s until 1914, when Europe changed forever), all seen through the lens of evening and night-time – or perhaps, as Emmanuel suggests, seen through the bottom of a glass of fine wine.

We talk about the music, the poetry, the chicken-and-egg question of which came first, and how Emmanuel prepares these pieces for performance – but we start with a little leçon in pronunciation...

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Over the nearly twenty years since its formation, Vox Luminis has appeared in our metaphorical pages plenty of times – the Belgian early music ensemble consistently combines original and exploratory programming with impeccable musicianship. Every album Lionel Meunier and his musicians release can be relied on to be not just a feast for the ears but also an interesting and well-thought-out dive into musical history, drawing connections and parallels and linking everything together seamlessly.

The title of their latest album, Ein Deutsches Barockrequiem, provides a heavy hint as to the theme of the repertoire being performed – comprising earlier settings of the same Biblical texts that Brahms would later select for the movements of his German Requiem. I caught up with Lionel to talk about the process of tracking down these motets, and what threads might link together Brahms himself with the composers featured here – as well as a surprising connection with one of today's finest bel canto tenors.

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Robert Levin set out to record a complete set of Mozart's works for keyboard and orchestra. After several highly successful and critically-acclaimed volumes over the following decade,  fate eventually intervened to force the project into the deep freeze, and on that unsatisfying note the story might have ended.

Happily, though, circumstances have now opened up the opportunity to pick things up again. The concluding five volumes are now very much in motion, with the first released recently in March,  and it's full steam ahead for the remainder of this much-loved and much-needed cycle. 

I caught up with Robert to talk about this project, and his work as a reconstructor and completer of the surprisingly large number of Mozart works that have only come down to us as fragments.

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2023 sees the quadricentennials of the deaths of both William Byrd - sacred polyphonist, virginalist and recusant Catholic - and Thomas Weelkes, remembered especially for his madrigals, his verse services and his repeated tellings-off by his bosses at Chichester Cathedral for what might delicately be termed rowdiness. 

Among various groups with albums in honour of these two composers are The King's Singers and Fretwork, who come together on the recently-released *Tom & Will* to perform some of the lighter and more secular works from these two composers, along with two new commissions. I had a very enjoyable chat with representatives of both groups - Patrick Dunachie batting for The King's Singers, and Richard Boothby for Fretwork.

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