Gramophone Classical Music Podcast

The Eloquence label issued its first 25 titles exactly 21 years ago, a project conceived, and looked after ever since, by Cyrus Meher-Homji. James Jolly spoke to him about the label, how it came about and how it has changed over its first two decades. And Cyrus also reveals some of the releases scheduled for the coming months, including box sets devoted to the pianist Ruth Slenczynska and the organist Gillian Weir.

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Following his Gramophone Award short-listed recording of Charles Valentin Alkan's Symphony and Concerto for solo piano (BIS), Paul Wee takes on another challenging work of the piano literature, Sigismond Thalberg's L'Art du chant appliqué au piano. Gramophone's Reviews Editor, Tim Parry – himself a pianophile – talked to Paul about the recording, Thalberg's piano music and how he balances his piano playing with his 'day job'.

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'Mythologies', just out on Avie, contains five orchestral works by Anna Clyne covering a period of 10 years. James Jolly caught up with the New York-based composer at her home in New York to talk about the collection, her various roles as composer-in-residence, and where she looks for inspiration when responding to a commission.

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On this week's Gramophone Podcast, Editor Martin Cullingford spoke to Anna Lapwood, Director of Music at Pembroke College, Cambridge. They discuss what life is like for the college's choirs - both the Chapel Choir, and the Girls' Choir which Lapwood founded in 2018 - and explore their beautiful new album released on Signum Classics, 'All Things Are Quite Silent'.

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In this week's Gramophone Podcast Richard Egarr tells James Jolly about his new recording of Dussek's Messe Solemnelle with the Academy of Ancient Music on the orchestra's own label.

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The French conductor Alexandre Bloch was appointed Music Director of the Orchestre National de Lille in 2016 and has made a huge impact on the musical making in the city. Two of his recordings with the orchestra – Bizet's Les Pêcheurs de perles (for Pentatone) and Chausson's Poème de l'amour et de la mer, with Véronique Gens, and the Symphony (Alpha Classics) – were shortlisted for the Gramophone Classical Music Awards. And such has been the acclaim of the Bloch/ONL partnership that the orchestra was also shortlisted for this year's Orchestra of the Year Award.

The latest release from this dynamic partnership is Mahler's Seventh Symphony, just out from Alpha Classics. James Jolly met up with Alexandre Bloch earlier his year when the conductor was in London on a short UK tour with the Lille orchestra. They talked about Mahler and also about the Lille orchestra which is really beginning to attract major attention.

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A special Gramophone Podcast devoted to this year's Awards - join us as we discuss the winners of this year's Artist of the Year, Lifetime Achievement, Label of the Year, Young Artist, Orchestra of the Year, Special Achievement, Concept Album and Beethoven 250 awards - plus we hear from the winner of this year's Recording of the Year!

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For her first solo album, 'Anima Rara', for Opera Rara, for whom she's already recorded Leoncavallo's Zazà and Puccini's Le Willis, Ermonela Jaho celebrates one of her great soprano predecessors, Rosina Storchio. Joined by the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana conducted by Andrea Battistoni, Jaho offers a programme of verismo arias, some familiar but many less so.

James Jolly met Ermonela Jaho early this year – face to face – while she was in London for a Wigmore Hall recital, and they talked about Storchio, the new album and both Puccini and Leoncavallo's takes on La bohème.

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In this edition of the Gramophone Podcast, Editor Martin Cullingford meets Joseph Calleja to talk about a really fascinating and very personal project - a celebration of the music of the conductor Mantovani, Britain's most successful album artist before the Beatles and the first to ever sell a million stereo records worldwide. On his new album for Decca, the tenor sings to Mantovani's historic and much-loved recordings - he explains how this project came about, and how they made it work.

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The 10 recording category winners have been announced, and the countdown to the naming of the 2020 Gramophone Recording of the Year has begun. All with be revealed during the evening of October 6 at a special online ceremony from Glyndebourne hosted by Gramophone's James Jolly and the mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey. (Watch it on Gramophone's website, Facebook and YouTube channels and on Medici.TV.)

To accompany the revealing of the 10 recording category winners, James Jolly was joined by Gramophone's Editor, Martin Cullingford, and Gramophone's Reviews Editor, Tim Parry, to talk through the winning albums, an inspiring mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar - everything linked by the excellence of its performance.

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