大象传媒

With James Jolly. This week musicians and music associated with the Aldeburgh Festival, and Pierre-Laurent Aimard, the festival's current artistic director, is our Artist of the Week.

To celebrate the opening of the 64th festival on Friday 10th June, here on Classical Collection James Jolly celebrates the music and musicians associated with the Festival.

"The annual Aldeburgh Festival, arguably the best musical event in Britain" - (Charlotte Higgins, Guardian).

"World-renowned as an outstanding year-round performance centre, Aldeburgh is also a place where artists at all stages of their career can be inspired and energized. With inspirational scenery, a rich musical heritage and the time and space for musicians and audience to discover, create and explore, Aldeburgh is the place to help artists reach their full potential and define their own musical landscape." (Aldeburgh Music)

Central to this week music and musicians associated with Aldeburgh are performances by the festival's current artistic director, the French pianist, Pierre-Laurent Aimard. "I''m a musician, and the piano happens to be my instrument. I don't like to have one function, to give me just one perspective on music. I like to make chamber music, to be part of a group, to play song accompaniments, to teach, to speak about music. In other words, to live the phenomenon on different sides." (Aimard in interview with Tom Service, The Guardian).

There are also performances from former directors including Oliver Knussen (Mussorgsky), Steuart Bedford (Britten), Murray Perahia (Liszt), Imogen Holst (in her husband's music), Thomas Ades, and from Britten himself (Bach, Mozart as well as his own).

10.00
Mussorgsky arr. Stokowski
Night on Bare Mountain - Witches' Sabbath (1940)
Cleveland Orchestra
Oliver Knussen (conductor)
DG 457 646-2

10.09
Artist of the Week

Beethoven
Rondo in B flat major, WoO6
Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano)
Chamber Orchestra of Europe
Nicolas Harnoncourt (conductor)
WARNER CLASSICS 2564 6060-2

10.18
The Festival was founded by Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears and Eric Crozier in 1948 with concerts given in the Jubilee Hall in Aldeburgh and in local churches. In the mid-1960s the Festival gained a new concert hall with the conversion of Snape Maltings, which includes one of the largest mid nineteenth century barley malthouses in East Anglia. Most of the building's original character, such as the distinctive square malthouse roof-vents, was retained. The new concert hall was opened by the Queen on 2 June 1967, at the start of the twentieth Aldeburgh Festival.

The next recording was made in 1968, a year before the old concert hall was destroyed by fire on the first night of the 1969 festival.

Britten
Simple Symphony
English Chamber Orchestra
Benjamin Britten (conductor)
DECCA 417 509-2

10.36
Poulenc
Sonata for horn, trombone and trumpet
Alan Civil (horn)
John Wilbraham (trumpet)
John Iveson (trombone)
EMI CMS 566831-2

10.45
Artist of the Week

Ravel
Gaspard de la nuit
Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano)
WARNER CLASSICS 2564 62160-2

11.15
Beethoven
String Quartet in E flat, Op.74 "Harp" The Building a Library choice from Saturday's CD Review.

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