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Schubert's String Quartet No. 15 in Building a Library with Jeremy Sams and Andrew McGregor

Andrew McGregor is joined by Jessica Duchen to review the best new classical releases, and Jeremy Sams picks his favourite recording of Schubert's String Quartet in G major D.887.

Andrew McGregor with the best of the week's new classical releases.

c2.10pm
The music writer, novelist, and opera librettist Jessica Duchen joins Andrew to review the latest new releases that have caught her ear.

3pm
Building a Library. Jeremy Sams surveys recordings of Schubert's String Quartet No. 15 in G major, D. 887, and makes a top recommendation.

Published posthumously in 1851, Schubert's String Quartet No. 15 - his final work in the genre - was staggering in scale. In duration it elapsed all preceding quartets, including Beethoven's ambitious String Quartet in B flat, Op. 130, which some argue whet the composer's creative appetite to stretch conventional architecture of the form further still. Others question whether its vastness belies claims that it was penned in only ten days in June 1826 and may have gestated instead out of a grand symphonic project he'd first contemplated in 1824. What is certain, however, is the skill with which composer inventively deployed the full expressive possibilities of his musical language over the course of the work's four contrasting movements.

Recommended recording:
Belcea Quartet
Warner Classics 9670252

c3.50pm
Record of the Week. Andrew's top pick of this week's new releases.

24 days left to listen

1 hour, 59 minutes

Last on

Last Saturday 14:00
BBC Radio 3

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Brahms's Piano Concerto No. 2 in Building a Library with Joanna MacGregor and Andrew McGregor

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Mahler's Symphony No. 5 in Building a Library with Alice Farnham and Andrew McGregor

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Music Played

  • Joseph Bologne

    Violin concerto in C major Op.3 no.2 (2nd mvt)

    Performer: Théotime Langlois de Swarte. Orchestra: Orchestre de l’Opéra Royal.
    • Chateau de Versailles.

  • Garth Neustadter

    Seaborne (Within)

    Ensemble: The Percussion Collective.
    • Seaborne.
    • Pentatone.
    • 103.

  • Władysław Szpilman

    Nie wierzę piosence

    Performer: Cyprien Katsaris.
    • Frederic Chopin Institute.

  • Derwid

    Nie oczekuję dziś nikogo

    Performer: Cyprien Katsaris.
    • Frederic Chopin Institute.

  • Mieczysław Weinberg

    String Quartet no.10 Op.85 (2nd mvt)

    Ensemble: Arcadia Quartet.
    • Chandos.

  • Franz Schubert

    Divertissement à la hongroise D.818 (1st mvt)

    Performer: Balázs Fülei. Performer: Jakob Fichert.
    • Hungaroton.

  • Franz Schubert

    Divertissement à la hongroise D.818 (2nd mvt)

    Performer: Balázs Fülei. Performer: Jakob Fichert.
    • Hungaroton.

  • Antonín Dvořák

    Symphony no.9 'From The New World' (4th mvt)

    Orchestra: Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. Conductor: Lahav Shani.
    • Warner.

  • Thomas Morley

    Out of the deep

    Ensemble: The Queen’s Six. Ensemble: Rose Consort of Viols.
    • Troubled Times: Music and Espionage in Renaissance England.
    • Signum Classics.
    • 108.

  • Erich Wolfgang Korngold

    Piano trio in D major Op.1 (1st mvt)

    Ensemble: Mithras Trio.
    • Fountain of Youth.
    • Linn Records.
    • 5.

  • Rebecca Dale

    Study II - chaconne for after you left

    Performer: Fenella Humphreys. Orchestra: Philharmonia Orchestra. Conductor: Nigel Short.
    • Studies in Disappearing.
    • Signum Classics.
    • 102.

  • Allison Loggins-Hull

    Grit. Grace. Glory. (Quip)

    Orchestra: The Cleveland Orchestra. Conductor: Franz Welser‐Möst.
    • Allison Loggins-Hull: The Cleveland Residency.
    • The Cleveland Orchestra.
    • 105.

  • Record of the Week

    • Samuel Barber

      Vanessa (Must the winter come so soon?)

      Singer: J’Nai Bridges. Orchestra: National Symphony Orchestra, Kennedy Center. Conductor: Gianandrea Noseda.
      • Barber: Vanessa.
      • National Symphony Orchestra.
      • 104.

    • Samuel Barber

      Vanessa (Listen!... They are here)

      Singer: Nicole Heaston. Singer: J’Nai Bridges. Orchestra: National Symphony Orchestra, Kennedy Center. Conductor: Gianandrea Noseda.
      • Barber: Vanessa.
      • National Symphony Orchestra.
      • 105.

    • Samuel Barber

      Vanessa (Do not utter a word)

      Singer: Nicole Heaston. Orchestra: National Symphony Orchestra, Kennedy Center. Conductor: Gianandrea Noseda.
      • Barber: Vanessa.
      • National Symphony Orchestra.
      • 106.

    • Samuel Barber

      Vanessa (Yes, I believe I shall love you)

      Singer: Nicole Heaston. Singer: Matthew Polenzani. Orchestra: National Symphony Orchestra. Conductor: Gianandrea Noseda.
      • Barber: Vanessa.
      • National Symphony Orchestra.

Broadcast

  • Last Saturday 14:00
    BBC Radio 3

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