Gramophone Classical Music Awards 1985
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Nigel Kennedy's recording of Elgar's Violin Concerto with the LPO and Vernon Handley won the Recording of the Year in 1985, but it was a vintage year with other prizes for Jorge Bolet, Bernard Haitink, Elisabeth Söderström, Neeme Järvi and more
Recording of the Year & Concerto category
Elgar Violin Concerto
Nigel Kennedy vn London Philharmonic Orchestra / Vernon Handley (EMI/Warner Classics)
Producer: Andrew Keener; Engineer: Mike Clements
The Elgar Violin Concerto has not lacked for great interpretations on record in recent years, but Nigel Kennedy's might well stand as the finest of all. It is a commanding reading. With Vernon Handley as guide it is at once the most centrally Elgarian of all those on record in its warm expressiveness, and equally in its steady pacing brings out more than usual the clear parallels with the Beethoven and Brahms Violin Concertos. That is particularly striking in the first movement, and both there and in his urgent account of the main Allegro of the finale, Kennedy has learnt more than any recorded rival from the example of the first great interpreter, Albert Sammons.
Yet the example of Sir Yehudi Menuhin, in whose school Kennedy's early talents were fostered, is also clear, not least in the sweetness and repose of the slow movement and in the deep meditation of the unaccompanied cadenza in the finale, taken exceptionally slowly. If for Kennedy this is a major landmark in a recording career of the highest promise, it equally adds impressively to the authority in Elgar powerfully established by Vernon Handley in his outstanding Elgar series. The sound, with the soloist balanced more naturally than usual, not spotlit, is outstanding too, faithful and atmospheric. Edward Greenfield
Chamber
Beethoven Late String Quartets
Alban Berg Quartet (HMV/Warner Classics)
Producer: Gerd Berg; Engineer: Johann-Nicolaus Matthes
Last year's Gramophone Award in the chamber-music repertory went to the Lindsay Quartet's set of the late Beethoven quartets, and it is a measure of the inexhaustibility of these great works that they have also claimed this year's vote. The Alban Berg are the first to give us them on CD, and the new medium certainly does justice to the magnificently burnished tone that the Alban Berg command, and the perfection of blend they so consistently achieve.
As I said in reviewing the Alban Berg account of Op 132, in terms of sheer technical address, tonal finesse and balance, they enjoy a superiority over almost every other ensemble of their generation. (Indeed, as I suggested, some listeners, particularly those brought up on the Busch or Végh Quartets, may find the sheer polish of their playing gets in the way, for this can be an encumbrance; late Beethoven is beautified at its peril.)
Summing up, RF, in discussing the release of the LP set, wrote, 'I don't think you'll find a better box, and I can confirm that deep thought behind the playing is everywhere apparent.' Indeed, so far as sheer quartet playing is concerned, it is likely to remain unchallenged. Robert Layton
Choral
Fauré Requiem. Cantique de Jean Racine
Caroline Ashton sop Stephen Varcoe bar Cambridge Singers; members of the City of London Sinfonia / John Rutter with John Scott org
(Conifer digital/Collegium)
Producer: Jillian White; Engineers: Campbell Hughes and Peter Sidhom
The familiar 1900 edition of Fauré's Requiem makes it look (and many recordings of that version make it sound) as though it were scored for a normal orchestra, but it is not. Even after the long-delayed publication of that edition, with woodwind and orchestral violins newly added to the texture, Fauré was insisting in letters to Ysaÿe that 'the orchestration is based on a quartet of divided violas and cellos' and admitting that 'the brass and woodwind have very little to do, since the organ' (which 'accompanies all the time' – my italics) 'fills in the harmony throughout.' It is as though he had added violins and woodwind reluctantly, not where their lack was felt but where he hoped (in vain, as it often turns out) they would be least noticeable. John Rutter's restoration of the work as it was before those additions is a revelation: this, surely, is the sound that Fauré imagined as he wrote. But the performance too, securely and beautifully sung and with ideally chosen soloists, is no less of a vindication; admirably recorded, it is a true restoration, and quite indispensable. Michael Oliver
Contemporary
Kurtág Messages de feu Demoiselle RV Troussova, Op 17 Birtwistle ...agm...
Adrienne Csengery sop Marta Fabian cimbalom John Alldis Choir; Ensemble InterContemporain / Pierre Boulez
(Erato/Conifer)
Engineers: Didier Arditti and Daniel Raguin
These two works could scarcely be more different. Kurtág's song cycle focuses unsparingly on the unhappiness of an individual – the Miss RV Troussova of the title. The result is a major addition to the line of such works which stretches from Schubert to Schoenberg and on to Peter Maxwell Davies; and, as with Die Winterreise or Revelation and Fall, if it were less good it would be merely depressing. Kurtág's genius is for pointed economy, and he has an instrumental, textural imagination (cimbalom prominent) to match the searing clarity of his actual ideas.
Alongside this the Birtwistle seems allusive, oblique. Like his title, the Greek text is fragmentary, the expression collective and ritualistic, evoking the austere, violent world of classical tragedy. Yet the form which the 16 voices and three instrumental groups gradually accumulate is of remarkable strength and irresistible conviction. The music is, in its way, as dramatic as Kurtág's, and as concerned to communicate experiences that can be conveyed in no other way.
The only reason for regretting that these works are coupled on one LP is that it deprives us of more music by each composer. And even in a year of strong, diverse competition these IRCAM commissions, in admirable performances and recordings, provide an outstandingly creative contribution to the recorded repertory. Arnold Whittall
Early Music (Baroque)
Charpentier Médée
Jill Feldman sop Gilles Ragon ten Agnès Mellon sop Jacques Bona bass Sophie Boulin sop Philippe Cantor bass Les Arts Florissants Chorus and Orchestra / William Christie (Harmonia Mundi)
Producer: Michel Bernard; Engineer: Jean-François Pontefract
As in previous years the baroque entries were both strong and varied, though, perhaps, this time a little thinner on the ground. The panel was unanimous in its admiration for a handful of performances, amongst which the Taverner Consort's account of the 1610 Monteverdi Vespers calls for special mention. Vigorous competition was also provided by two instrumental recitals of violin sonatas by Corelli and Leclair, played by Sigiswald Kuijken and Monica Huggett, respectively.
Eventually, though, it was a project of more imposing dimensions that just pipped the others to the winning post – Charpentier's Médée. In his own lifetime Charpentier did not enjoy the acclaim he deserved and it is only in the last few years that we now recognize in his music a supreme contribution both to the secular and sacred music of the grand siècle. The vocalists and instrumentalists of Les Arts Florissants under their director, William Christie, give a vital account of the richly varied score of Charpentier's only tragédie lyrique. It's not without occasional weak moments, especially in the choral singing, but the panel felt that this was a performance which not only vividly captured the notably varied affects of Charpentier's music but which has made a major contribution to recorded baroque literature. Fine sound both on LP and CD serves to enhance the splendour of the work. Nicholas Anderson
Early Music (Medieval & Renaissance)
Victoria Missa O quam gloriosum. Missa Ave maris stella. Motet – O quam gloriosum
Westminster Cathedral Choir / David Hill (Hyperion)
Producer: Mark Brown; Engineer: Antony Howell
This has been an unusually rich year for new recordings that fall into the Medieval and Renaissance category, and the panel was hard pressed to reach a unanimous verdict. Of the ten nominations, three very different records were seriously considered for the award, each of which can only be described as an outstanding achievement: Gothic Voices performing courtly songs from the early fifteenth century; The Consort of Musicke's response to Monteverdi's fifth book of madrigals; and two Masses by Victoria, sung by the choir of Westminster Cathedral. Of these, the last made perhaps the deepest and most enduring impression, quite simply on account of its sheer beauty of sound and the unusually intelligent interpretation to which Victoria's wonderful polyphony is treated.
Powerful, subtly responsive to the shaping of the vocal lines, and of course supported by the vast resonance of Westminster Cathedral, the sound of the choir is breathtaking, particularly in the expansive Ave maris stella Mass. These are of course no concert performances, but rather ones informed by a deep understanding of the music's place in the context of living liturgy. Only very rarely do readings of such music penetrate quite so deeply below its surface. John Milsom
Historical (non-vocal)
Nielsen Symphonies
Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra / Thomas Jensen, Erik Tuxen, Launy Grøndahl (Danacord)
Producer and Remastering Engineer: Jesper Buhl
The brief of this Award is to draw attention to records that bring us into contact with performance traditions that would otherwise be lost. Boult's 1945 Elgar 2 or the Rachmaninov and Lhevinne piano rolls are obvious candidates, yet the Nielsen tradition is even less well documented. These little-known performances bring us as close to the composer's own as we are ever likely to get.
The three conductors presented in this set were close to Nielsen and provide a unique link with him. The technical quality calls for some tolerance but this is of little moment when put alongside the insights these performances give us. Everyone plays as if their very lives were at stake, and with an ardour and fervour that are altogether thrilling.
Jensen never recorded Symphony No 4 commercially, and his is a great performance – and so, too, is Grøndahl's version of Symphony No 2. So many conductors labour over the finale of Symphony No 3, encouraged by reports that Nielsen himself adopted a very broad tempo. This version sounds absolutely right and its breadth is not at the expense of pace and momentum: the listener is swept along, as indeed they are by the rest of the symphony. There are four really great performances here (Nos 2, 3, 4 and 6). Robert Layton
Historical (vocal)
The Art of Claudia Muzio The Columbia Recordings: 1934–5
Claudia Muzio sop (HMV mono)
Remastering Engineer: Keith Hardwick
Choice was far from easy in this category this year. A number of nominations would have been deserving of the award while none seemed to be an obvious choice as winner. Ferrier's Chausson is an important historic document and an eloquent performance. McCormack is always McCormack and so deserving of high consideration. The Vienna Stars still shine brightly, but we certainly felt that Muzio's singing, perhaps above that of the others, still has something special, not to say unique, to say to us.
Young artists would and should learn more from her about the art of communication and about sincerity of utterance than from almost any other singer of the past. Like Callas, she had a wholly individual and irreplaceable immediacy of expression, and in these last, late recordings it was at its height in both respects. As that senior critic Rodolfo Celletti has it in the note that goes with this set: 'Where Muzio remains, even in her records, completely inimitable, is in the natural quality of her utterance, in the range of her shading, in the inexhaustible intensity with which she colours the musical phrase.' The evidence is here laid before us to prove the point. Alan Blyth
Instrumental
Liszt Années de pèlerinage, Première année, 'Suisse'
Jorge Bolet pf (Decca)
Producer: Peter Wadland; Engineer: John Pellowe
Since the disappearance of Lazar Berman's magnificent complete recording of the Années de pèlerinage (DG, 9/77) we have badly needed a recording of the 'Swiss' year. Jorge Bolet's performance is an outstanding event in a Liszt series which throughout has been of exceptional quality.
The most remarkable sensitivity to this rarely heard cycle of pieces is evident in his phrasing, control of textures and use of subtly differentiated pale colours. Thus the arrestingly fresh perceptions embodied in this music survive, and we are made aware of how disconcertingly original it must have sounded when new.
Yet some of the pieces, such as 'Eglogue' or 'Au lac de Wallenstadt,' are notably simple. Bolet plays these, and 'Au bord d'une source,' limpidly, with a pearl-like tone. They are a series of pastorals, and, in this haunting interpretation, a series of enchantments, perhaps above all in the case of 'Les cloches de Genève.' He is as imaginatively evocative in 'Chapelle de Guillaume Tell,' and it is in keeping with Bolet's whole approach to this cycle that 'Orage,' with its profuse octaves – the most étude-like piece – is experienced as a purely musical emanation. Here is pianism of surpassing beauty. Max Harrison
Operatic
Mozart Don Giovanni
Thomas Allen bar Carol Vaness sop Maria Ewing mez Keith Lewis ten Richard Van Allen bass Glyndebourne Festival Chorus; London Philharmonic Orchestra / Bernard Haitink (HMV/Warner Classics)
Producer: John Fraser; Engineer: Stuart Eltham
Performances of Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne in 1982 were by general consent considered deeply satisfying on all counts. At about that time it was decided to record the work with substantially the same cast with results that have rightly gained the set its due reward. Today, the most successful opera recordings mostly derive from stage productions that are then given permanence in the studio. The overriding merit of this Giovanni is that it captures the sense of those well-remembered Glyndebourne evenings, with all the tautness Haitink then achieved.
His lean, lithe, forward-moving direction reminds one of Fritz Busch, whose own records of the work are often recalled here, and as in that set, the sum of the parts (literally) is greater than any individual performance, though Giovanni himself has had few more seductive yet saturnine interpreters than Thomas Allen, and he has a wonderful rapport with Richard Van Allen's seedy Leporello. Carol Vaness and Maria Ewing make a well-contrasted pair of donne, Keith Lewis a mellifluous Ottavio. The symphonic stature of the whole performance is revealed in HMV's well-balanced natural recording. Alan Blyth
Orchestral
Prokofiev Symphony No 6. Waltz Suite, Op 110 – Nos 1, 5 and 6
Scottish National Orchestra / Neeme Järvi (Chandos)
Producer: Brian Couzens; Engineers: Ralph Couzens and Bill Todd
In welcoming this issue I spoke of it as 'an outstanding recording of a hardly less impressive performance'. Though the Sixth Symphony lags far behind the Fifth in popularity, it goes much deeper than any of the others: indeed, it is surely the greatest of the Prokofiev symphonies. Neeme Järvi has an instinctive grasp and deep understanding of this repertoire, and shapes both its detail and the architecture as a whole with real mastery. The various climaxes are expertly built and related to each other, and the whole structure is held together in a way that recalls only the most distinguished precedents.
We all know that the SNO is not in the same league as the Leningrad Philharmonic or the Boston Symphony both of whom have recorded this work, but there is tremendous commitment. The wind sing out with great feeling in the slow movement and I was particularly impressed by the final appearance of their passionate chorus. An orchestra of the second rank playing with total zest can often be more thrilling than a luxury one coasting along on automatic pilot. The Chandos recording is wonderfully vivid and present, and the bass particularly sonorous and powerful, a worthy successor to their 1984 Award-winning Bax Fourth Symphony. Robert Layton
Solo Vocal
Sibelius Songs
Elisabeth Söderström sop Tom Krause bar Vladimir Ashkenazy, Irwin Gage pfs (Argo/Decca)
Producer: Christopher Raeburn; Engineer: John Pellowe
Although the panel must have been torn, in that the complete set of Ravel songs on EMI is a 'winner', the Sibelius is important in that it breaks new ground. Many of these songs, including two of the very greatest, lubal and Theodora, have never been recorded before, and their stature only dimly grasped. Indeed, they have been written off by many music-lovers, whose knowledge of them does not extend far beyond the popular Black Roses and The Trysl. Yet I must say that Theodora will come as a revelation to many Sibelians, for in its over-heated expressionism, it comes close to the Strauss of Salome and Elekttra.
Tom Krause is superb throughout the set: the vast majority of the songs fall to his lot, the remaining dozen or so coming from Söderström and Ashkenazy. Krause's voice has lost none of its black intensity, and there are keen interpretative insights and a strong feeling for character. The performances throughout the set are authoritative and majestic. In terms of ambition and – not just ambition – but achievement, this box is a major event. Only very few of the songs are wanting in interest, most of them are very rewarding indeed and there are many more masterpieces than is commonly realized. This is a veritable treasure house which will, I feel, come as a great surprise to those who think they know their Sibelius. Robert Layton
Engineering & Production
Ravel Ma mère l'oye. Pavane pour une infante défunte. Le tombeau de Couperin. Valses nobles et sentimentales
Montreal Symphony Orchestra / Charles Dutoit (Decca)
Producer: Ray Minshull; Engineer: John Dunkerley
Several earlier recordings featuring Charles Dutoit conducting the Montreal Symphony Orchestra have been highly rated in our quarterly 'Sounds in Retrospect' reports on recorded sound quality. This group of four Ravel compositions reaches the highest technical standards in every department. There is a fine sense of space, and yet with remarkably clear orchestral definition and believable perspectives.
The Decca team of Ray Minshull and John Dunkerley would seem to have a near-ideal recording venue in the Church of St Eustache, Montreal and produced digital recordings of demonstration quality. The LP version is a model of today's state of the recording art, whilst the CD achieves a marginally higher degree of focus and listener-involving realism.
This Engineering and Production Award must always go to one recording chosen from a group of very close contenders. Runners-up this year, with scarcely less claim to technical excellence, include the winners in the Choral, Instrumental and Orchestral categories as well as 'French Ballet Music Of The 1920s' played by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Geoffrey Simon, Herold's La fille mal gardée arranged and conducted by John Lanchbery, and Mahler's Symphony No 4 conducted by Lorin Maazel. John Borwick
