Coriún Aharonián: Una carta Ensemble Aventure, SWF-Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden/Zoltán Peskó (Wergo)
Documentaries like this one make me sentimental for a time, until about 25 years ago, when classical music was a more or less weekly presence on terrestrial TV.
Last Tuesday’s offering from the Wigmore Hall’s series of live broadcasts was a fiery recital from Russian violinist Alina Ibragimova partnered by pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout.
In an atmosphere of uncertainty created by a government desperate to boost the economy despite the COVID-19 infection rate not reducing significantly, some UK venues and organisations are moving responsibly towards some kind of new normality. The Wigmore Hall has lunchtime concerts every weekday from 1 June, broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and livestreamed on the hall's website.
At last, it seems, one venerable British institution will be emulating what Scandinavian and Czech set-ups have been managing over the past month: live performances from an audience-less venue, though in sound only. In quickly reorganised scheduling along with BBC Radio 3, the Wigmore Hall features a host of its top regular artists in June lunchtime concerts.
Time to face the elephant in the room. Five of the six set-ups listed below are free to access; one is not.
Beethoven Symphonies 1-3 – arrangements by Ries & Ebers Compagnia di Punto (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi)
Beethoven: Complete Piano Sonatas Fazil Say (Warner Classics)
How fast the world can change. What seemed unimaginable just weeks ago, the effective shuttering of our societies, is now a reality in many countries for at least weeks and quite possibly several months to come. I hope for the health and security of all of you reading this. I’m not going to reflect on our situation at any length as I’m sure many of you have read far more on the subject than is good for you - I certainly have! - but rather I want to talk about an idea that came to me a few days ago that gave me a lot of pleasure.
Maybe it's not so surprising that the musicians one has long thought of as true Menschen of the profession - that applies to both sexes, of course, and maybe it's just more about the artists in question being natural communicators - have been among the first to rally in the current crisis.