Tom Service talks to Philip Langridge and Mark Padmore about Britten's tenor roles, Kevin Bazzana about his new Glenn Gould book, conductor Rene Jacobs and composers Andrew Poppy and Graham Fitkin.
Programme Notes
The tenor, Peter Pears , gave definitive performances in many of Benjamin Britten's operas. This summer sees a new Peter Grimes at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and productions of several other operas written by Britten for his muse and partner, Pears.
Tom talks with two leading British tenors and interpreters of Britten, Philip Langridge and Mark Padmore, reflecting on the legacy of Pears and their own interpretations of Britten's work.
Death in Venice (with Philip Langridge as Ashcenbach) and Peter Grimes, will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3's Performance on 3 on Friday 2 nd July at 6.55pm and Saturday 10 th July at 6.30pm respectively.
Mark Padmore sings in The Turn of the Screw on 18 th July at the Cheltenham Festival and can also be heard in the BBC Proms in Bach's Mass in B minor, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, in Prom 41 on Sunday 15 th August, at 8pm .
The idiosyncratic pianist, Glenn Gould , was the subject of much controversy in his lifetime and, since his death in 1982, has continued to be one of the most written-about musicians of the twentieth century.
Tom met Kevin Bazzana, the author of a new biography of Gould, Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould, and asked him about the curious relationship between the man and the music-making.
Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould, is available from Yale University Press, (hardback, £25).
Rene Jacobs started his musical life as a counter-tenor, before becoming a conductor after the success of a production of Cesti's opera Orontea. Jacobs went on to rediscover several other works by composers whose music was virtually forgotten, including Gassmann, Graun and Kaiser.
Tom asks Rene Jacobs why these works fell into obscurity and about his distinctive recordings and performances of other baroque masterpieces.
Rene Jacobs directs Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro at London 's Barbican Hall on Tuesday 29 th June and his new recording of the opera is out now on Harmonia Mundi.
Andrew Poppy and Graham Fitkin are two contemporary composers who have carved self-sufficient careers without the patronage of big institutions. Through organising their own groups, record contracts, and now websites, they have nurtured their creative independence.
Tom talked with both Poppy and Fitkin about the challenges of forming successful careers in this way.
You can hear a new quartet by Fitkin performed by the Duke Quartet at this year's Cheltenham Festival on BBC Radio 3's Hear and Now programme on Saturday 10 th July at 11pm .
For further information on Poppy and Fitkin, visit their websites: www.fitkin.com and www.andrewpoppy.com
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