Joel and Camden from the Dover Quartet meet Hattie Butterworth in Philadelphia to discuss their latest album, Woodland Songs, which places the music of Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate and Pura Fé alongside the Dvorak 'American' String Quartet in F Major. Though vastly different works in style, expression, and historical context, they share the common …

We're looking through Series 8 again because the script book could tell us some new things about it. We'll be trying to pick up on things we missed first time round, and sharing new revelations (and ridiculous theories) brought to light by the books. We might need your help. If you haven't heard our reaction episode to The Bones of St Nicholas, we …

The mandolin player Avi Avital, with his ensemble Between Worlds, has just released a new DG album ‘Song of the Birds’ which crosses boundaries to explore the musics of three geographical regions – Iberia, southern Italy (Puglia) and the Black Sea – with vivid results. For this week’s Gramophone Podcast, James Jolly caught up Avi Avital while he wa…

Join Hattie at the 2025 Three Choirs Festival in Hereford as she speaks to performers, composers, clergy and audience members to discover what makes the festival such a place of pilgrimage 300 years since its foundation

Guy Johnston joins Hattie Butterworth to discuss his latest recording of the Arthur Bliss Cello Concerto with Andrew Manze and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. A technical mine field, the concerto was written for the great cellist Rostropovich and premiered with Benjamin Britten conducting at the 1970 Aldeburgh Festival. Guy also speaks …

We're looking through Series 7 again because the script book could tell us some new things about it. We'll be trying to pick up on things we missed first time round, and sharing new revelations (and ridiculous theories) brought to light by the books. We might need your help. If you haven't heard our reaction episode to Wise Owl, we recommend starti…

As the 2025 BBC Proms season gets underway, Martin Cullingford is joined by Tim Parry and Hattie Butterworth select their top picks. From Rachmaninov with Yunchan Lim and the UK premiere of Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s Cello Concerto to a late-night tribute to Arvo Pärt and a rare performance of Delius’s A Mass of Life, the team reflects on the Proms’s c…

We're today continuing the theme set by last week's edition, in which we marked the 500th episode of the Gramophone Classical Music podcast by looking back over some of our most memorable interviews and episodes. The interview Editor Martin Cullingford chose to reflect on was a conversation he had with the guitarist Julian Bream all the way back in…

Earlier this year the Gramophone Podcast passed 1 million downloads. Now we’ve reached another milestone: our 500th episode. Launched before podcasting’s current popularity, the series steadily built a following, which grew substantially once we adopted a weekly schedule and set formats. Those formats include: interviews with major artists on new a…

We're looking through Series 7 again because the script book could tell us some new things about it. We'll be trying to pick up on things we missed first time round, and sharing new revelations (and ridiculous theories) brought to light by the books. We might need your help. If you haven't heard our reaction episode to A Random Act of Kindness, we …

We're looking through Series 7 again because the script book could tell us some new things about it. We'll be trying to pick up on things we missed first time round, and sharing new revelations (and ridiculous theories) brought to light by the books. We might need your help. If you haven't heard our reaction episode to Kid/Nap, we recommend startin…

Gramophone's Editor Martin Cullingford speaks to James Jolly about the 2025 Orchestra of the Year nominated orchestras, discussing the impact each of them has made to recordings and the wider musical landscape To vote for Gramophone's Orchestra of the Year 2025, head to gramophone.co.uk/vote25

Conductor John Andrews joins Hattie Butterworth to speak about the debut recording of Sir Granville Bantock and Marjory Kennedy-Fraser’s folk opera, The Seal Woman. They explore the folk song collecting of Marjory Kennedy-Fraser, as well as Andrews’s commitment to uncovering lesser-known repertoire

We're looking through Series 7 again because the script book could tell us some new things about it. We'll be trying to pick up on things we missed first time round, and sharing new revelations (and ridiculous theories) brought to light by the books. We might need your help. If you haven't heard our reaction episode to Nine Lives Kat, we recommend …

Kitty Whately joins Hattie Butterworth to discuss her new album on Chandos with pianist Edwige Herchenroder​ titled Horizons: French Melodies. They also explore the historic erasure of women composers, as well as Kitty's ongoing advocacy and research

The vocal ensemble VOCES8 are marking their 20th anniversay with a new release – out today – celebrating the full breadth of their creativity, and an exciting season of concerts. Editor Martin Cullingford sat down with three of the key figures behind this most innovative of ensembles – the co-founders Barnaby Smith, Artistic Director, and Paul Smit…

This week’s Gramophone podcast is a special focus on one of the most significant of 20th century composers, Dimitri Shostakovich, the 50th anniversary of whose death we mark this year. As our guide to his music we’re privileged to have conductor Andris Nelsons, who, together with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has just reached the end of a journey …

The German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's 100th birthday falls on May 28. One of the most versatile singers of the last century – his operatic repertoire alone ranged from Gluck, Handel and Mozart via Verdi, Wagner and Richard Strauss to Berg, Busoni and Reimann – it's his devotion to song that remains his lasting legacy. To mark the anniversa…

We're looking through Series 7 again because the script book could tell us some new things about it. We'll be trying to pick up on things we missed first time round, and sharing new revelations (and ridiculous theories) brought to light by the books. We might need your help. If you haven't heard our reaction episode to Mr King, we recommend startin…

In this week's episode, Editor Martin Cullingford met with the founder and Music Director of Bach Collegium Japan Masaaki Suzuki, along with the group's Principal Conductor Masato Suzuki, to talk about their new recording of Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem, available now on BIS – as well as discussing Bach's St John Passion, which they had performed…

We're looking through Series 7 again because the script book could tell us some new things about it. We'll be trying to pick up on things we missed first time round, and sharing new revelations (and ridiculous theories) brought to light by the books. We might need your help. If you haven't heard our reaction episode to Merrily Merrily, we recommend…

In 2007, Yevgeny Sudbin released an album of music by Alexander Scriabin. Reviewing it in Gramophone, Bryce Morrison described it as a 'disc in a million'. Now, Sudbin has returned to the composer for his 25th recording for BIS, and offers a wide-ranging survey of music that includes two more of the piano sonatas. James Jolly caught up with Yevgeny…

In this week's episode of the Gramophone Classical Music Podcast, Editor Martin Cullingford is joined by the Principal Conductor of the Hallé Orchestra, Kahchun Wong, to talk about the orchestra's relationship with its home city, Manchester, and their new recording of Bruckner's Symphony No 9.

We're looking through Series 6 again because the script book could tell us some new things about it. We'll be trying to pick up on things we missed first time round, and sharing new revelations (and ridiculous theories) brought to light by the books. We might need your help. If you haven't heard our reaction episode to Last Night of The Proms, we r…

Zlatomir Fung won the Cello category of the 2019 International Tchaikovsky Competition, and also has an enviable collection of other cello awards and prizes to his name. He was a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship Winner in 2022 and was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2020. His debut recording, ‘Fantasies’, is just out from Signum and on it …

Alan Gilbert is Chief Conductor of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, as well as Music Director of the Royal Swedish Opera. Gramophone's James Jolly caught up with him during a run of Wagner’s Die Walküre in Stockholm, where he lives. They talked about his Hamburg-based orchestra, the role today of a radio orchestra and also about the work orchestr…

In this episode, Gramophone's Editor Martin Cullingford talks to pianist Leif Ove Andsnes about his new recording on Sony Classical of the extraordinary work Via Crucis by Franz Liszt, the composer's deeply spiritual meditations on the Stations of the Cross, released just before the start of Holy Week. This week's podcast is produced in association…

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS! We went to Wyndham's Theatre on Saturday 22nd February 2025 for the matinee performance of Stage/Fright. We recorded this episode on Sunday 23rd, while our thoughts were still fresh but waited until the end of this initial run before publishing. They are touring it later in the year, but we won't wait until that finishes. If…

We're looking through Series 6 again because the script book could tell us some new things about it. We'll be trying to pick up on things we missed first time round, and sharing new revelations (and ridiculous theories) brought to light by the books. We might need your help. If you haven't heard our reaction episode to How Do You Plead?, we recomme…

This week journalist and author Jessica Duchen joins Holly Baker to talk about her new book Myra Hess - National Treasure, which is out now on Kahn & Averill. Extracts of music on the podcast come from the album 'Myra Hess - The complete solo and concerto studio recordings' on APR Records

This week violinist James Ehnes joins the Gramophone Podcast to talk about his new recording of Bach's complete violin concertos, recorded with Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra, and released on the Analeketa label.

The two-time Grammy Award-winning Attacca Quartet has seen stratospheric success in recent years across new and popular music collaborations. Hattie Butterworth meets the group as their debut album with Platoon of Ravel's String Quartet is released. Music clips: Ravel String Quartet – Platoon PLAT26294 Entr'acte by Caroline Shaw from Orange – Nones…

John Weldon, born in 1676, was an English composer and pupil of Henry Purcell. Keyboardist Julian Perkins and soprano Anna Dennis join Hattie Butterworth to discuss the world premiere recording of Weldon's opera 'The Judgment of Paris', recorded by the Academy of Ancient Music and Cambridge Handel Opera…

We're looking through Series 6 again because the script book could tell us some new things about it. We'll be trying to pick up on things we missed first time round, and sharing new revelations (and ridiculous theories) brought to light by the books. We might need your help. If you haven't heard our reaction episode to Hurry Up and Wauit, we recomm…

Maurice Ravel was born 150 years ago, on March 7, 1875, and he is the subject of numerous tributes this season. Bertrand Chamayou recorded the complete piano works ten years ago for Erato ('No one who loves French music or exquisite piano-playing will want to miss this' wrote Patrick Rucker in Gramophone), a set that incidentally has just been rele…

We're looking through Series 6 again because the script book could tell us some new things about it. We'll be trying to pick up on things we missed first time round, and sharing new revelations (and ridiculous theories) brought to light by the books. We might need your help. If you haven't heard our reaction episode to Lip Service, we recommend sta…

Tenor Ian Bostridge and pianist Saskia Georgini join Gramophone Editor Martin Cullingford this week to talk about their new album of Schumann Songs, Twilight, released on the Pentatone label.

For this edition of the Gramophone Podcast Editor Martin Cullingford was joined by three of the four members of the French ensemble Nevermind - flute player Anna Besson, viola da gamba player Robin Pharo and harpsichordist Jean Rondeau - to talk about the group's new creative exploration of Bach's Goldberg Variations, newly released on the Alpha la…