Ludwig Schupmann

What are the hallmarks of a Christopher Nolan film? Immense IMAX imagery. Starry ensembles. Long takes. Tight, geometric compositions. Nonlinear story. And, of course, a booming score. For the music to Oppenheimer, a sprawling epic about how J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) became the so-called “father of the atomic bomb” and Nolan’s most ambitious picture to date, the revered filmmaker turned to none other than Ludwig Göransson. The composer had worked on Nolan’s previous film, Tenet, and the director knew he was the right man for the job.

The Philharmonia Orchestra was in superb form in the autumn of 1957 when the opportunity came for it to perform all nine Beethoven symphonies, plus the five piano concertos, in a series of 10 concerts at London's Royal Festival Hall under the baton of Otto Klemperer. Credit for that certainly should go to Herbert von Karajan, who had been the orchestra's principal conductor since its founding a decade earlier, and had recently been tapped by the Berlin Philharmonic as its conductor for life.

Like Gilels, Brendel treats the Op. 35 Variations as far more than a poor relation of the Eroica Symphony finale. His approach has less of the urgent, seemingly improvisatory thrust which makes the Gilels DG performance (on LP only) so compelling, but the sharpness with which he characterizes each variation is a delight, each time bringing a moment of revelation, and often relating this essentially middle-period work to much later inspirations. The six Bagatelles of Op. 126 equally find Brendel giving these fragments a weight, concentration and seriousness to reflect what else Beethoven was writing at the time. There is a gruffness of expression with charm eliminated. The third Bagatelle is the more moving for its simple gravity, and only in the final one of the group does Brendel allow himself to relax in persuasive warmth. Fur Elise makes a simple, haunting prelude to the group and the six Ecossaises a jolly postude with Brendel evoking the bluff jollity of Austrian dance music.

The Deutsche Oper in Berlin had hardly opened on 24th September 1961 before it started preparing to celebrate its 50th anniversary. How was that possible? Had it entered into some sort of time warp? That might indeed have been possible for a theatre that in the past had devoted itself to Richard Wagner’s works. But there was a simpler explanation: the Deutsche Oper Berlin had, in fact, originally opened on 7 November 1912 under the title of Deutsches Opernhaus.

With the vast majority of Beethoven's works being frequently performed as part of the modern canon, we can sometimes forget those few pieces that often lie dormant. This Hyperion album, featuring the Nash Ensemble, celebrates three such works. The program opens with the Op. 104 C minor String Quintet, which keen listeners will instantly recognize as a transcription of the Op. 1/3 Piano Trio. The quintet version came into being as a sort of "oneupsmanship" after an amateur composer submitted his own transcription. Beethoven, who accurately assessed that he could do better, rewrote it and published it as Op. 104. If you're not already familiar with the piano trio, you may never know that the string quintet began its life in a different genre. Beethoven's writing is highly idiomatic while preserving almost the entire original score of the trio. The Nash Ensemble's performance is equally refined and stunning, making it all the more curious why this piece is not performed more frequently.