Glenn Gould is perhaps best known for recording keyboard works by Bach, and in particular the Goldberg Variations – first in 1955 and again in 1981. In the recordings, the Canadian pianist can be heard humming along to melodies.
In 2018, Sir John Eliot Gardiner launched his Schumann cycle, recorded for LSO Live, with concerts at the Barbican and on tour in Germany. In an excerpt from a conversation with David Nice, he introduced us to Robert Schumann's orchestral music, which we are bringing to your living rooms this Thursday (26 March 2020).
'I only encountered the Britten Violin Concerto for the first time in 2003, when I heard Maxim Vengerov and the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich on the radio. I was mesmerised. Britten’s music was rather a late discovery for me, but it immediately spoke to me in an irresistible language that I had never heard before. I remember the feeling of despair and drama that came across – a romantic violin concerto in 20th-century language.'
Long-standing LSO cellist Jennifer Brown tells us about her career in music and how orchestral life has changed since the 1980s.
François-Xavier Roth explains why he's championing the music of under-celebrated French composer Paul Dukas
The idea of this programme is to focus on the work of a composer who is very famous and yet at the same time unknown. Dukas is such an important figure in music history – not just in France, but around the world. Unfortunately, he didn’t write very much, but what he did compose is brilliant, and influenced many other composers – Messiaen and Dutilleux, for example.
