BBC Music Magazine Awards 2009 - brought to you by Presto Classical

BBC Music Magazine Awards 2009

in association with Beet It organic beetroot juice

The Winners

An expert jury from the reviewing team of BBC Music Magazine put forward the 18 nominations and these were voted on by the public. The winning discs were announced on 7th April, together with the special jury awards.

Disc of the Year

Mozart - Symphonies Nos. 38-41

Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Sir Charles Mackerras

The jury says… 'Sir Charles Mackerras and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra turn in wonderfully energetic performances of Mozart’s last four symphonies. Here are interpretations full of insights whose lucid textures allow us to discover details anew on which Mackerras imprints a personal, often intimate stamp.' Nicholas Anderson

Category Award Winners

Franck & Fauré - String Quartets

Dante Quartet

The jury says… 'Franck's String Quartet was his last work, but one written at the height of his powers. The Dante Quartet play it with unashamed passion but also with fine structural control, reminding us what a sadly undervalued masterpiece it is.' Roger Nichols

Bach Cantatas, Vol. 27

Monteverdi Choir & The English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner

The jury says… 'Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s Bach Pilgrimage has resulted in a rewarding series of the composer’s sacred cantatas. What this survey reveals is a deep personal affection for the repertoire and a refreshing, expressive spontaneity often missing from studio recordings but which here captures the moment of live performance.' Nicholas Anderson

Mozart - Symphonies Nos. 38-41

Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Sir Charles Mackerras

The jury says… 'Sir Charles Mackerras and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra turn in wonderfully energetic performances of Mozart’s last four symphonies. Here are interpretations full of insights whose lucid textures allow us to discover details anew on which Mackerras imprints a personal, often intimate stamp.' Nicholas Anderson

Debussy - Complete Works for Solo Piano, Vol. 3

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (piano)

The jury says… 'Like Beethoven's Marches and Schubert's Ländler, Debussy's salon pieces display a master's pen, and beneath the predominantly charming surfaces all kinds of subtle syntax is at work. Bavouzet captures every nuance within a seductively beautiful piano sound.' Roger Nichols

Amoureuses - Arias by Haydn, Mozart & Gluck

Patricia Petibon (soprano), Concerto Köln, Daniel Harding

The jury says… 'She charms, she smoulders, she rages, she laments, she dies. As a potted introduction to Patricia Petibon's emotional range and dramatic gifts, this is superb...but it's also a classy selection of highlights from three of the great 18th century opera composers. You can't lose.' Andrew McGregor

Melancholie - Songs by Schumann

Christian Gerhaher (baritone), Gerold Huber (piano)

The jury says… 'Has any baritone since Fischer Dieskau sung Schumann’s Liederkreis Op.39 with such intensity and so accurately? Gerhaher is the kind of artist who steals your breath away. Only later do you understand the skill and the intelligence that has been mustered for performances as fine as these that are spiked with Romantic pain as well as delight.' Christopher Cook

Jury Award Winners

Award for Technical Excellence in Recording

Pieter Wispelwey plays Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 2 & Britten Cello Suite No. 3

Late night sessions and a meticulous approach bring audio perfection.

DVD of the Year

Donizetti - La Fille du Régiment

An evening of pure joy in the company of a first-rate cast at the Royal Opera House is captured to perfection on this DVD.

Newcomer of the Year

Quatuor Ebène play Ravel, Debussy, Fauré String Quartets

As the rising young quartet approach their tenth anniversary as a group, they cast fresh insight into three exquisite French classics.

Premiere Recording of the Year

Heiner Goebbels - Landschaft mit entfernten Verwandten

Veteran composer bewitches and beguiles with a variety of styles in his debut opera.

Other Finalists

Bloch - Piano Quintets

Piers Lane (piano), Goldner String Quartet

The jury says… 'The brooding intensity and inventive originality of the Bloch quintets are a real revelation from a composer whose reputation rests almost entirely on the better-behaved Schelomo, and the performers put the music across with real passion and commitment.' Misha Donat

Vasks - Piano Trio & Piano Quartet

Trio Parnassus

The jury says… 'Latvian composer Vasks’ combines experimental tonal language on the one hand and an ability to create interesting textures by more conventional means on the other. The result is two well-sustained works whose textures are rewardingly conveyed and tensions upheld by the brilliant and homogeneous playing of Trio Parnassus with Avri Levitan.' Nicholas Anderson

Scattered Rhymes

Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Paul Hillier

The jury says… 'Machaut's Mass of 1360 makes a nonsense of conventional ideas of musical progress, as Tarik O'Regan's free variations on it, written 640 years later, amply demonstrate. A disc of wild energy, astonishing virtuosity, visceral excitement.' Roger Nichols

Szymanowski - Stabat Mater

Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Antoni Wit

The jury says… 'Suffused with the mystical fervour of Polish Catholicism, this largely sacred programme delivers a richly atmospheric Stabat Mater (the grieving mother palpably human) alongside an expansive Veni Creator whose ecstatic visionary ending blazes. Two Classical Greek pendants add rarity value to a warmly compelling disc.' Paul Riley

Bach - Partitas Nos. 2, 3 & 4

Murray Perahia (piano)

The jury says… 'Murray Perahia is peerless in this repertoire: his sprung rhythms, the limpid clarity of voicing of the inner parts, his natural sense of narrative along with an inimitable touch make for illuminated performances. There’s an elation to the fast movements and a gravitas to the slow. You feel you are in the presence of a pianist with a unique spiritual connection to Bach.' Helen Wallace

Tippett - Complete music for piano

Steven Osborne (piano)

The jury says… 'Tippett’s four sonatas constitute a fascinating snapshot of his evolution and it would be hard to imagine a sharper eye behind the ‘lens’ than Osborne’s. He understands the journey and signposts the landmarks with a compelling blend of muscular strength, luminous delicacy, contrapuntal dexterity and rhythmic buoyancy.' Paul Riley

Donizetti - Imelda de’ Lambertazzi

Nicole Cabell, James Westman, Massimo Giordano, Frank Lopardo, Brindley Sherratt; Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Mark Elder

The jury says… 'Mark Elder leads the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and a handsome cast that includes Nicole Cabell in the title role and James Westman as her lover through a magnificently dark performance of a bel canto rarity. This is Donizetti stretching the operatic rules, with a baritone hero for once facing an army of wicked tenors.' Christopher Cook

Pierné - Sophie Arnould

Sophie Marin-Degor, Jean-Sébastien Bou, Doris Lamprecht, Luxembourg PO, Nicolas Chalvin

The jury says… 'A gem of a one-act opera composed in 1926 by Gabriel Pierné. Arnould, the singer who created the title role in Gluck’s Iphigénie en Aulide meets a former lover and the father of her child. Regret and melancholy mingle with wit and fury in a score that nods in the direction of Neo-Classicism while keeping its own musical company.' Christopher Cook

Brahms - Symphony No. 1, Begräbnisgesang, Schicksalslied; Mendelssohn - Mitten wir im Leben sind

Monteverdi Choir, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, John Eliot Gardiner

The jury says… 'A fascinatingly-planned programme, with two lesser-known works leading up to a performance of Brahms's First Symphony that shed genuinely new light on what can sometimes seem an over-familiar masterpiece. Both the choral singing and the orchestral playing are superb throughout.' Misha Donat

Dvorák - Symphony No. 9 & Symphonic Variations

Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Marin Alsop

The jury says… 'A New World Symphony that impresses with its freshness, its drive, and its clear-eyed sense of purpose. The slow movement never flags, the finale is exhilarating, the playing is top-notch, and the recording's first class. Now check the price…' Andrew McGregor

Un Frisson Français - A century of French song

Susan Graham (mezzo-soprano), Malcolm Martineau (piano)

The jury says… 'From rapturous Messiaen and dapper Ravel to the sensuality of Paladilhe and the literally cheesy wit of Rosenthal, Susan Graham dishes up an irresistible ‘tasting menu’ of 100 years of French song. Tender, feisty, whimsical and sultry she finds a pertinent accomplice in Malcolm Martineau. A disc of self-evident sensibility and sophistication.' Paul Riley

Songs by Tchakovsky, Mussorgsky & Rorem

Gerald Finley (bass-baritone) & Julius Drake (piano)

The jury says… 'From the lavish beauty of Tchaikovsky, the morbid darkness of Mussorgsky to the implacable terror of Rorem's Whitman settings, Gerald Finley is utterly compelling. He's been in rare form recently, and such is the communicative immediacy of this disc, you'll feel as though you were there in Wigmore Hall…and isn't that the point?' Andrew McGregor

For details of the 2008 and earlier awards, click here.

Copyright © 2002-13 Presto Classical Limited, all rights reserved.