Classical Explorations — September 2026

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Jay Capperauld
Our Gilded Veins
At nearly twenty-five minutes, a contemporary concerto can sometimes make me wonder whether its musical argument will sustain its scale. With Our Gilded Veins, I needn't have worried for a second. This is an absolutely stunning piece. Capperauld's writing is highly original – rhythmically sparkling, harmonically arresting and constantly full of interest. From the outset I was gripped by those striking chords, unexpected shifts of tonal centre and a tremendous sense of drama that seems to propel the music forward. But what impresses me most is its sense of narrative. It is full of colour, tension and release, with a musical voice that feels immediately recognisable. Katherine Bryan's playing is extraordinary. There is virtuosity, of course, but also character and storytelling; the flute becomes the protagonist within this extraordinary orchestral landscape.

Joseph Haydn
Symphony No. 45 in F-sharp minor, ‘Farewell’: I. Allegro assai
I seem to have encountered Ian Page and The Mozartists everywhere recently, through their recordings and the considerable attention they have been receiving in magazines and elsewhere. On the evidence of this performance, it isn't difficult to understand why. There is real fire here. Haydn's famous F-sharp minor symphony can sometimes acquire a certain historical politeness in performance, but nothing feels polite here. From the opening bars, the first movement has urgency, bite and tremendous energy. Even the little motor rhythms bubbling away in the background are played with purpose and intensity, while those pivotal chords are proclaimed with all the drama they deserve. There is a wonderful sense of momentum, but also tremendous clarity – every detail seems to have a reason for being there. Even the striking artwork seems somehow to capture the energy contained within the recording. This is eighteenth-century music that feels thrillingly alive, performed with such conviction and freshness that I genuinely feel as though I am hearing it for the first time.

Einojuhani Rautavaara
Sydämeni laulu (version for cello and piano)
Rautavaara is by no means a new discovery for me. I have conducted Cantus Arcticus on a couple of occasions and have followed his music for many years. Yet one of the pleasures of exploration is discovering another, much more intimate side of a composer you think you know. This tiny musical moment, heard here in an arrangement for cello and piano, is beautifully concentrated. Santiago Cañón-Valencia produces a wonderfully rich and expressive sound, and in little more than three minutes Rautavaara creates a world that feels simultaneously simple, distant and deeply affecting.

Johannes Brahms
Six Piano Pieces, Op. 118: No. 2, Intermezzo in A major
There is something fascinating about hearing familiar repertoire reconsidered through the instruments and sources closest to the composer’s own world. You will notice that I have included two pieces by Brahms in this month’s list, written just a year apart, but included for very different reasons. Brahms wrote some extraordinary music towards the end of his life for piano, clarinet and organ – three instruments I play – so this late period has always felt deeply personal. This gorgeous Intermezzo isn’t showy; it is wonderfully peaceful and inquisitive, but above all, simply beautiful. András Schiff’s recently released recording explores Brahms through the original scores and a period piano. I had seen plenty about the project on social media and confess I was a little sceptical, but I needn’t have been. There is a directness and vulnerability to the sound which seems to strip away more than a century of accumulated performance tradition. It doesn’t reinvent Brahms – it simply asks us to listen again.

David Maw
Sonata for Organ: III. Danse
The organ carries an extraordinary weight of tradition, and quite rightly so. But that can sometimes make it particularly refreshing to encounter a genuinely contemporary voice writing for the instrument. David Maw is a British composer whose work ranges across orchestral, chamber, vocal and instrumental music, and here Danse brings an entirely different language to the organ. In the hands of the superb Stephen Farr, its colours and rhythmic character are allowed to shine. It is a reminder that this vast, ancient instrument is perfectly capable of speaking with a twenty-first-century accent. In this recording we hear the wonderful Harrison & Harrison organ of Norwich Anglican Cathedral which was rebuilt in 2023.

Ernesto Lecuona
Y la negra bailaba!
A commercial break! Two minutes of wonderfully crisp, clean playing and an irresistible change of atmosphere. Sometimes a listening journey needs precisely this: something concise, characterful and completely different from what surrounds it.

Hildur Guðnadóttir
Elevation, version for orchestra
Hildur Guðnadóttir occupies a fascinating space between contemporary classical music and the worlds of film and television. Her international profile has grown enormously through her screen work, but what interests me here is her extraordinary control of colour and atmosphere. Elevation unfolds patiently, inviting us into what feels like a fully immersive experience. The textures gradually seem to alter the space around the listener: deep resonance from the bass instruments provides an almost physical underpinning, while the bass clarinet pokes through the texture and shifting string glissandi create an ever-changing landscape above. There is something wonderfully three-dimensional about the whole thing – music that feels as though it surrounds you rather than simply plays in front of you. I can easily imagine Elevation paired with an immersive light installation or an abstract film, where sound, colour and movement become part of the same experience.

Nancy Dalberg
Symphony in C-sharp minor: II. Andante sostenuto
Nancy Dalberg is another composer whose music deserves considerably wider exposure. Born in 1881 on the Danish island of Funen, she studied composition with some of the leading figures in Danish music, including Carl Nielsen, with whom she developed a close working relationship. Her own output included orchestral, chamber and vocal music, and her Symphony in C-sharp minor, completed in 1917, was a particularly significant achievement – Dalberg was the first Danish woman known to have composed a symphony. There is something beautifully poised about this slow movement. Its language is recognisably connected to the late-Romantic symphonic tradition, but there are nuances of harmony, colour and phrasing that give Dalberg a voice of her own. I was particularly struck by the Copenhagen Phil here. The strings have a wonderfully lush and refined sound, but underneath that warmth is an exceptionally tight ensemble; long lines are sustained with real control and the quieter writing has an impressive sense of unanimity. Released only in August, this recording feels like far more than an historical curiosity. It is another reminder of how much substantial music still sits just outside our normal concert-going consciousness – music which, when performed with this level of commitment, makes you wonder why it ever disappeared in the first place.

Christopher Rouse
Flute Concerto: V. Amhrán
Two flute concertos in one month, I hear you cry – but this stopped me in my tracks and I hope it does for you too! Christopher Rouse (1949–2019) was a significant American orchestral composer of his generation. A prolific writer of symphonies and concertos, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1993 for his Trombone Concerto. And then there is Emmanuel Pahud. His sound here is almost liquid – I could listen to it all day. There is an extraordinary purity to his playing, but never sterility: every phrase breathes and sings. Rouse’s Amhrán – Irish for ‘song’ – provides the perfect landscape for that sound. The concerto can be turbulent and intensely dramatic, but in this final movement there is something almost suspended in time. In Pahud’s hands, the result is emotional, beautiful and utterly sincere.

Donnacha Dennehy
‘Limina’ Piano Concerto: II. Chest
Donnacha Dennehy was a new name to me, and this is precisely the sort of discovery for which I created Classical Explorations. Born in Dublin in 1970, Dennehy is one of Ireland’s leading contemporary composers and was a co-founder of the Crash Ensemble, established in Dublin in 1997 as a vehicle for new music. His work has subsequently travelled far beyond Ireland, with performances by ensembles and orchestras on both sides of the Atlantic, and he is now Professor of Music at Princeton University. What caught my attention here was the texture. This simply wasn’t what I expected a piano concerto to sound like. There is something almost physical about the relationship between piano and orchestra, with sounds and gestures continually shifting the perspective of what we are hearing. The soloist doesn’t simply sit in front of an accompanying orchestra; the two seem much more intricately entwined. It continually makes the ear reassess what it is hearing, and there is an originality to Dennehy’s sound-world that immediately made me want to investigate his music further.

João Marcondes
Brazilian Suite No. 5 for Bass Trombone and Cello: VII. Lamento
Bass trombone and cello is hardly an everyday combination – and that is precisely why I wanted to include it. I often think composers can learn an enormous amount from listening to unusual combinations of instruments. Writing idiomatically is important, but if we only ever hear instruments behaving as we expect them to behave, we don't necessarily discover where their expressive boundaries lie. Here those boundaries are pushed, and the result gives both instruments a voice that feels different from the one we usually encounter.

Doreen Carwithen
Concerto for Piano and Strings: I. Allegro assai
What a pleasure to see Doreen Carwithen continuing to receive the attention she deserves. For far too long, important music by women composers sat outside the established repertoire, and recordings such as this allow us to judge the music on the thing that ultimately matters: the music itself. There is tremendous vitality in this first movement, beautifully realised by Alexandra Dariescu, Manchester Camerata and John Andrews – a conductor whose work has appeared in Classical Explorations before. This isn't music that deserves to be heard merely because it was neglected. It deserves to be heard because it is very good.

Cassandra Miller
Swim
This was another genuine discovery. Cassandra Miller's sound-world is quite unlike almost anything else in this month's collection. Material seems to pass almost imperceptibly between instruments; gestures emerge and disappear; and much of the music exists at an extraordinarily hushed dynamic. That makes the performance itself remarkable. Sustaining very quiet sounds across long spans while maintaining immaculate ensemble and intonation is enormously demanding. The playing from the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra is deeply impressive, but it never draws attention away from Miller's extraordinary textures. Instead, orchestra and composition seem to breathe together.

Michael Price
The Flowers Left Thick – Spring in Steep, 1915
Michael Price will be a familiar name to many listeners, although his music was relatively new territory for me. What attracted me here was the freshness of the sound. There is a contemporary sensibility without the music ever seeming determined to advertise its contemporaneity. The Galliard Ensemble perform it beautifully, and the recording captures the intimacy and colour of the wind writing particularly well.

Ned Rorem
Symphony No.1: i. Maestoso
One of the unexpected consequences of working on new recording projects is being pointed towards composers whose music has somehow escaped you. I came to Ned Rorem (1923–2022) through just such a conversation. An American composer perhaps best known for his extraordinary output of art songs, Rorem was also a prolific orchestral and chamber composer, as well as a celebrated diarist and writer. His long life spanned an enormous period of change in twentieth-century music, yet he remained unapologetically committed to lyricism and tonality. As I began exploring his orchestral music, I repeatedly found myself thinking of Vaughan Williams. Not because Rorem sounds derivative, but because I hear a related affection for modality, tonality and an earthy, pastoral lyricism. The opening of this First Symphony has something of the anguish, directness and drama I associate with the opening of Vaughan Williams’s Fifth. Subtle shifts of tonal centre remain bound together by a strong modal character, while colourful wind and brass solos emerge from the texture and a twinkling harp adds flashes of light. In this recording, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic gives the music real stature – rich, assured and beautifully shaped.

Johannes Brahms
Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115: II. Adagio – Più lento
And finally, home. If much of this edition has been about discovering music I didn’t know, I wanted to finish with music that is deeply in my veins. I have performed the Brahms Clarinet Quintet myself, and as a clarinettist the extraordinary late flowering of Brahms’s creativity has always meant a great deal to me. Brahms had effectively withdrawn from composing before hearing Richard Mühlfeld play. Something in this remarkable clarinettist’s sound reawakened his imagination, leading to the Trio, Quintet and two Sonatas that now sit at the heart of the clarinet repertoire. I sometimes wish we could travel backwards in time and hear these musicians through the ears of the composers who encountered them. What did Brahms hear in Mühlfeld? Was it something in his sound, his phrasing, his personality? What was the spark that made a composer who believed his creative life was essentially over pick up his pen again? The playing here from Michael Collins and the Escher String Quartet is authoritative yet wonderfully dreamy. In the extraordinary Hungarian-inflected central section, that dreaminess suddenly gives way to something fiery and gutsy, before Brahms draws us back into stillness. I saw recently that this recording has already passed two million streams on Spotify, despite having been released only a matter of weeks ago. It is hardly surprising. This is music of deep maturity, played by musicians who seem completely at home within its language. Perhaps that is ultimately what this month’s Classical Explorations has been about. Music does not exist solely as notes on a page – it passes between people. A performer inspires a composer; a composer inspires another performer; a new project sends a conductor towards unfamiliar music; and a recording made decades or centuries later can suddenly stop another listener in their tracks. After more than two hours exploring new voices, unfamiliar colours and unexpected paths, there are few places I would rather finish than here: with Brahms, the clarinet, and one of the most profoundly beautiful slow movements ever written.