• For her debut solo album, Images (Signum), Anna Lapwood, organist, conductor, broadcaster, has devised an organ recital as unexpected as it is absorbing. Several of the works are transcriptions – Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, the Andantino from Debussy’s String Quartet and, most arresting, Lapwood’s own version of Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, which take on a magical, unearthly quality. The “Storm” becomes even more maniacal and uneasy, but “Dawn”, misty and ethereal, might have been written for the instrument. Owain Park’s Images, inspired by a passage from Walt Whitman, sends multiple fanfares echoing in space. The third of Nadia Boulanger’s Trois Improvisations and works by Olivier Messiaen, Patrick Gowers, Kerensa Briggs and Cheryl Frances-Hoad complete this eclectic programme.
The organ of Ely Cathedral, extensively restored in 1999-2001, lends itself persuasively to the sensuous, often – but not always – pianissimo repertoire Lapwood favours. She writes of practising late at night, in a locked cathedral in mid-January 2021, the sound of the grand organ “piercing the warm cushion of dark silence like a beam of light”. Somehow she and her recording team have captured this mood precisely.
• Mozart piano concertos are so well served – whether in classic recordings by Brendel, Perahia, Uchida, or the newer releases by outstanding players – it’s sure to be, as here, the soloist who attracts attention. Jeremy Denk is pianist and conductor in two Mozart Piano Concertos, No 25 in C major, K503 and No 20 in D minor, K466 (Nonesuch) with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. He also plays the Rondo in A minor, K511 a bonus.
This American performer approaches everything with questing intelligence and energy. In both concertos – the enigmatic C major and the more popular, restlessly turbulent K466 – his ornaments and cadenzas are full of wit and imagination, his ear for detail incisive and bracing. The excellent Saint Paul players match his variety and range of expression.
As ever, Denk’s probing liner notes shed light, making an already engrossing album more than worth the purchase. He is artist in residence at this year’s Lammermuir festival, which closes on 20 September with Denk playing two Mozart concertos with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.
• With the Proms now over, Radio 3 shares highlights from this year’s Edinburgh international festival with three unmissable concerts. Tuesday: the pianist Steven Osborne and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, conducted by Valery Gergiev, in Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No 1; Wednesday: US mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato and the ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro. Thursday: the violinist Nicola Benedetti and her own period instrument ensemble in a baroque works; 7.30pm, Radio 3/BBC Sounds.
