The German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's 100th birthday falls on May 28. One of the most versatile singers of the last century – his operatic repertoire alone ranged from Gluck, Handel and Mozart via Verdi, Wagner and Richard Strauss to Berg, Busoni and Reimann – it's his devotion to song that remains his lasting legacy. To mark the anniversary of Fischer-Dieskau's birth, Gramophone's James Jolly spoke to song specialist and author of Schubert: The Complete Song Texts (Schirmer: 1988), Richard Wigmore.

They focused on Fischer-Dieskau's audio recordings of Schubert's greatest song-cycle Winterreise (1828) which include three with Gerald Moore, as well as versions with Klaus Billing, Hermann Reuter, Daniel Barenboim, Jörg Demus, Alfred Brendel, Murray Perahia and Maurizio Pollini.

In this week's episode, Editor Martin Cullingford met with the founder and Music Director of Bach Collegium Japan Masaaki Suzuki, along with the group's Principal Conductor Masato Suzuki, to talk about their new recording of Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem, available now on BIS – as well as discussing Bach's St John Passion, which they had performed the day prior to the interview. The interview took place last year in, appropriately enough, London's Japan House.

In 2007, Yevgeny Sudbin released an album of music by Alexander Scriabin. Reviewing it in Gramophone, Bryce Morrison described it as a 'disc in a million'. Now, Sudbin has returned to the composer for his 25th recording for BIS, and offers a wide-ranging survey of music that includes two more of the piano sonatas.

James Jolly caught up with Yevgeny Sudbin recently to talk about his relationship with the composer and his unique musical world.

In this week's episode of the Gramophone Classical Music Podcast, Editor Martin Cullingford is joined by the Principal Conductor of the Hallé Orchestra, Kahchun Wong, to talk about the orchestra's relationship with its home city, Manchester, and their new recording of Bruckner's Symphony No 9. 

Zlatomir Fung won the Cello category of the 2019 International Tchaikovsky Competition, and also has an enviable collection of other cello awards and prizes to his name. He was a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship Winner in 2022 and was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2020.

His debut recording, ‘Fantasies’, is just out from Signum and on it he explores, with his pianist Richard Fu, a very specific genre, the virtuoso fantasy based on popular operas of the day. And Zlatomir has contributed his own fantasy based on Janáček's Jenůfa.

James Jolly went to talk to him at Henry Wood Hall in London earlier this year just before a rehearsal with the London Philharmonic with whom he was performing a couple of concerts. 

Alan Gilbert is Chief Conductor of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, as well as Music Director of the Royal Swedish Opera. Gramophone's James Jolly caught up with him during a run of Wagner’s Die Walküre in Stockholm, where he lives.

They talked about his Hamburg-based orchestra, the role today of a radio orchestra and also about the work orchestra and conductor have just released (on the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester label to stream and download), Brahms's Third Symphony.

In this episode, Gramophone's Editor Martin Cullingford talks to pianist Leif Ove Andsnes about his new recording on Sony Classical of the extraordinary work Via Crucis by Franz Liszt, the composer's deeply spiritual meditations on the Stations of the Cross, released just before the start of Holy Week. 

This week's podcast is produced in association with Wigmore Hall, where performers over the coming week include two performances by the former Gramophone Artist of the Year, pianist Víkingur Ólafsson, conductor William Christie with the ensemble that he founded, Les Arts Florissants, and the Chiaroscuro Quartet. For full details of these concerts, and many more, visit https://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk

This week journalist and author Jessica Duchen joins Holly Baker to talk about her new book Myra Hess - National Treasure, which is out now on Kahn & Averill. 

Extracts of music on the podcast come from the album 'Myra Hess - The complete solo and concerto studio recordings' on APR Records

This week violinist James Ehnes joins the Gramophone Podcast to talk about his new recording of Bach's complete violin concertos, recorded with Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra, and released on the Analeketa label.  

The two-time Grammy Award-winning Attacca Quartet has seen stratospheric success in recent years across new and popular music collaborations. Hattie Butterworth meets the group as their debut album with Platoon of Ravel's String Quartet is released.

Music clips:

Ravel String Quartet – Platoon PLAT26294

Entr'acte by Caroline Shaw from Orange – Nonesuch 7559792609