Classical home listening: of love and death and snails

The Navarra String Quartet cover all bases, from Schubert to A Bullfighter’s Prayer. Plus, Nicholas Maw and a new opera with a cause

• The title Love and Death (Orchid Classics) could incorporate nearly all music ever written. The Navarra String Quartet, whose playing has a transparent, febrile energy, explain it as a stark expression of opposites: “the seductive courting of the matador before a final paso doble with the bull”. This British-based group’s new album combines three dark-themed glories of the repertoire: Schubert’s Death and the Maiden, D810; Janáček’s Quartet No 1, “Kreutzer Sonata”; and I Crisantemi, which Puccini wrote in haste after the death of a friend. Two tiny string pieces by György Kurtág and the elegiac The Bullfighter’s Prayer by the to me unfamiliar Spanish composer Joaquín Turina (1882-1949) complete the disc, recorded last year but dedicated to all who have suffered during the current pandemic.

• Hardly a note of Nicholas Maw (1935-2009), prolific and well-performed, especially in the 1980s, has been played since his death. For that reason I wanted to hear the selection of works – Spring Music, Voices of Memory and Sonata for Solo Violin (Lyrita) – expertly performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conductor William Boughton, and violinist Harriet Mackenzie. In his lifetime, Maw was somewhat out of step in adopting an unfashionably direct, lyrical style. Returning to his music now, it’s easier to hear – and accept – him as part of a neo-romantic British tradition, with robust, modernist barbs. Worth listening.

• Osman Kavala, the human rights activist and philanthropist, and the snails he tended in a Turkish prison – he is still detained – are the subject of Osman Bey and the Snails, a lockdown world premiere, composed by Nigel Osborne and produced by Opera Circus, that stars, among others, Nadine Benjamin and Lore Lixenberg as the unexpectedly beguiling snails. Persuasive musically, and technically a coup, it’s opera with a cause: the 10-minute work is being shared through Amnesty International, PEN and Open Democracy.

Watch Osman Bey and the Snails

Contributor

Fiona Maddocks

The GuardianTramp

Related Content

Article image
Classical home listening: Rodelinda, Miloš and more
Lucy Crowe and Iestyn Davies lead the English Concert’s first-rate recording of Handel’s 1725 opera

Fiona Maddocks

15, May, 2021 @11:00 AM

Article image
Classical home listening: Mozart, mambo, Miss Julie and more
Sarah Willis has a ball in Havana, William Alwyn’s opera grips, and John Wilson and co run riot with Respighi

Fiona Maddocks

25, Jul, 2020 @11:00 AM

Article image
Classical home listening: Beethoven, Brett Dean and John Frederick Lampe…
Vladimir Jurowski and the Bayerisches Staatsorchester excel in an ideal double bill. And top soloists and the Brook Street Band have fun with 18th-century Yorkshire-set farce

Fiona Maddocks

23, Jul, 2022 @11:00 AM

Article image
Classical home listening: from the salon to storm-tossed Aldeburgh
The 19th-century cellist-composer Alfredo Piatti is well-served in two recent recordings. Plus, Grimes on the Beach on the BBC

Fiona Maddocks

27, Jun, 2020 @11:00 AM

Article image
Classical home listening: Kate Lindsey takes on Nero; Herbert Blomstedt conducts Brahms
Works inspired by the Roman tyrant burst into life in the latest recording from the mezzo and Arcangelo

Fiona Maddocks

29, May, 2021 @11:00 AM

Article image
Classical home listening: Bernard Herrmann meets Emily Brontë; Keith Jarrett plays CPE Bach
A Wuthering Heights opera by the man who scored Psycho and The Birds is well worth a listen, while the American piano great makes CPE his own

Fiona Maddocks

02, Sep, 2023 @11:00 AM

Article image
Classical home listening: Haydn with Harry Christophers, and a new Welsh-language opera
Boston’s H+H shine in a live recording of Haydn’s Theresienmesse; and WNO, Stephen McNeff and Gruff Rhys do Hedd Wyn proud

Fiona Maddocks

03, Sep, 2022 @11:00 AM

Article image
Classical home listening: a time capsule from 1953; Caio Fabbricio; Power and Adès on film
A remastered recording of the Queen’s coronation is full of atmosphere; Handel’s ‘capsule opera’ is beautifully performed; and violist Lawrence Power releases a visual album

Fiona Maddocks

04, Jun, 2022 @11:00 AM

Article image
Classical home listening: Semele at Ally Pally, Russian cello sonatas and more
Louise Alder shines in a vibrant live Handel recording by the Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra

Fiona Maddocks

08, Aug, 2020 @11:00 AM

Article image
Classical home listening: Mozart and CPE Bach from the Dunedin Consort; Cuarteto Quiroga’s Atomos
The baroque specialists thrill in a new edition of Mozart’s C minor Mass, while the Spanish string quartet go to the edge with Beethoven, Bartók and more

Fiona Maddocks

23, Sep, 2023 @11:00 AM