Shostakovich’s Trio Op. 8 predates his first symphony and was begun when the composer was 16. It followed emotional crises caused by the First World War, his struggle with tuberculosis, the death of his father and his love for the daughter of a Moscow professor. It is not surprising that the work is a kaleidoscope of emotions ranging from ecstasy to despair. The Trio Op. 67 dates from the worst period of the Second World War (1944) and reflects the deprivations and horrors suffered by the Soviet people at that time. It is said that at the first performance, by Shostakovich and members of the Beethoven Quartet, members of the audience were moved to tears and left stunned at its conclusion. Further performances were banned probably because the authorities recognised that the Jewish theme in the finale was a reference to the persecution of Jews taking place throughout Europe. The Schnittke Trio (1991) is an arrangement made after the composer had recovered from a serious stroke, of his string Trio of 1985. It is written very much in the style of Shostakovich’s music but is, if anything, even grimmer and more pessimistic than that latter’s 0p. 67. It consists of…

Rare Bach selections played excellently by an oboe legend.

That augurs badly for this disc, which presents new settings of six works by Argentina’s tango-master Astor Piazzolla, alongside four original compositions inspired by Piazzolla by pianist David Gordon and violinist Adam Summerhayes. Piazzolla, an innovative composer and musician who created cutting-edge music inspired by the tango tradition, breathed fresh life into what had become a rather tired musical genre. But although an inspired creator, he set strict limits on his musical expression. He used a bandoneon (an instrument similar to a concertina) as his main instrument. He eschewed strings and percussion, and even disliked jazz-style improvisation. Yet this album presents a string orchestra with piano, and positively glistens with percussive effects from the stringed instruments as well as great expressive jazz riffs. It should be a universe away from Piazzolla’s world. Yet it is not. In their very free interpretations of Piazzolla’s works, and in their own compositions, Gordon and Summerhayes honour the composer by giving us some wildly expressive and continually exciting music which is as thrilling as the tango itself. As an act of homage, this works. As an explosion of raw musical passion, it works even better. 

Martha Argerich’s annual festivals at Lugarno give young artists a chance to perform with older, more established musicians and to explore the byways of chamber music. This 3-CD set comes from the 2009 Festival. All the music is capably and sensitively performed. Argerich, of course, is a renowned artist and the Capuçon brothers, Gautier, the cellist, and Renaud, the violinist, are also well known. Other, newer musicians, who are worthy of note are the pianists Lilya Zilberstein and Khatia Buniatishvili. Because 2009 was the anniversary year for Schumann and Mendelssohn, both these composers are featured. Mendelssohn’s Piano Sextet, written at the same time as his Octet and the Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is a pleasant enough piece, if somewhat garrulous, but it cannot hold a candle to those other masterpieces. Schumann’s Fantasiestücke for piano, cello and violin, are also hardly amongst his greatest works. The virtually unknown Sextet in E flat by Glinka is also a work worthy of an occasional hearing, but contains nothing of the Russian nationalist traits for which he became famous. For me, the most interesting work was Bloch’s Piano Quintet No. 1, whose quality makes one wonder why his music is not heard more…

The longtext was written by one Henry Hamilton, something of a hack. The speeches are relieved by Elgar’s attractive and diverse music but the pretentious exchanges between the voices of Indian cities – as each city argues for its right to be the new capital – requires a deal of patience and historical perspective. Even so, more circumstance and less pomp would have better served Elgar in scoring this curious work. Very little of his original orchestration has survived. As recently as the early 1970s, the full score was lost when the building housing the archive of the music publisher was demolished. All that remained was a piano score and a recording of a suite conducted by Elgar. So the remarkable Anthony Payne again came to the rescue. He is the genius who realised Elgar’s unfinished sketches for his third symphony. Andrew Davis knows how this music works and gets excellent performances from all and sundry. The recording is first-rate and there is some marvellous, undiscovered Elgar for the fans to dine on. Hopefully, Chandos see fit to issuea CD without the tedious spoken text at some point. However, to have the work complete for the first time is very…

A founding member of the Calefax Reed Quintet, he has provided them with arrangements of works by composers as diverse as Bach, Ravel and Rameau. As a soloist, he has arranged Paganini’s Caprices for saxophone and this disc finds him again concentrating on the master violinist’s output. Many of the works on this release are effectively Paganini ‘once removed’ as they are arrangements of other composers’ arrangements. Hekkema is a brilliant saxophonist and he uses his full bag of tricks in attempting to match Paganini’s range. However the result is only partially satisfying, as many of the effects seem forced or not quite right. Frequently the ‘effect’ is heard rather than the musical content but, given that the repertoire for the classical saxophone is severely limited he makes a brave attempt. The highlight is the arrangement of Paganini’s Quartet XV where Hekkema puts aside his bag of tricks and focuses on the music of this wonderful and less well known work. Pianist Eijsacker is a willing and talented partner; the sound is spectacularly captured by Dabringhaus and Grimm’s engineers and the sleeve notes (by Hakkema) are lucid and informative. Ultimately, however, this will be of limited interest to anyone but…

Typically iconoclastic, it opens with a solo piano theme that is answered by the orchestra, before a more traditional ritornello follows – based on the piano theme. The second movement, one of Beethoven’s finest, is a dialogue between an initially angry and strident orchestra and a serene piano that eventually dominates – soothing the orchestra. The final Rondo is a joyous romp. For this recording, pianist Roland Brautigam uses a newly revised score for the outer movements that includes annotations by the composer in 1808, eventually deciphered in 1994. The overall effect of these changes is minimal. Towards the end of 1806, Beethoven also wrote his only Violin Concerto for Franz Clement, which is another strikingly original work with its opening timpani strikes. In 1808, at the request of pianist/composer Muzio Clementi, Beethoven transcribed it for piano. Unfortunately much of the piano transcription is a straight repetition of the violin part with little or no harmonic addition. This can be a little disconcerting for the listener used to the violin version. The cadenzas, however, were newly composed by Beethoven and probably contain the most interesting music in the concerto. Brautigam gives a characteristically reliable performance and the Norrköping Orchestra are…

This is especially true as all of the music is of high quality and lacks both the trivial material that mars so much of his work, and the bleak despair of some of his last quartets. The most attractive work is the Piano Quintet which was written between the Stalinist terror of the late 1930s and the Nazi invasion of 1941, a period when life was fairly secure and consumer goods had become more readily available.  On the other hand, the great Piano Trio of 1944 reflects the horrors and privations suffered by the Russian people during the war. The “Jewish” theme of the finale is interpreted now – and was at the time – as a reference to the persecution of the Jews both in Nazi-occupied Europe and the Soviet Union. The Quartet No. 3, written just after the war, begins , according to the composer himself, with a movement describing the “bliss of ignorance” followed by other movements related to the atrocities of the war and a final movement asking the meaning of life itself. Both this and the Quartet No. 7, a depiction of the composer’s late wife, contain moments of real lyrical beauty of which any composer would…

You really have to go over the top these days with this work to draw yourself apart from the pack. Does the SSO succeed?

Back then, the beauty of the best analog recordings was lost in the ferocity of the digital age. It took more than a decade before most studio technicians had developed the skill – or the ear – to again record with natural audio spaciousness and bloom. In this set, the opening waltz is marred by a hard jangly sound in the upper register. It’s impossible to tell if this is from the recording methodology, or studio ambience, microphone placement or from the piano itself, but it sets a discordant tone right from the start. Things do improve as the set continues, but this is a disappointing reading of the waltzes. It seems a rather perfunctory reading. Slower passages in particular, as in the Op 34 No. 3, the Valse Brillante, sound just tired rather than deliciously languid. There are far better accounts of the Chopin Waltzes. The outstanding set, from Romanian pianist Dinu Lipatti, also comes from EMI and is my definite preferred set. The only reason this Jean-Philippe Collard recording could augment a collection is that it collects all 19 waltzes, including four posthumous compositions which are missing from the Lipatti recording. 

Deutsche Grammophon announces this as Lang Lang’s first CD of chamber music and, on the whole, it is successful. The Tchaikovsky Trio was written in 1881 in memory of Nicholas Rubinstein, pianist and founder of Moscow’s Conservatory – a man who had both praised and denounced Tchaikovsky and who aroused conflicting emotions in him. It consists of two movements – a Pezzo elegiaco and a theme with 11 variations and a coda. The second movement was considered by Tchaikovsky’s contemporaries to be a musical portrait of Rubinstein’s many-faceted personality. The music does not sound particularly elegiac. It is typically Tchaikovskian in its melodies and depth of emotion, but sometimes seems a bit too long for its material. The distinguished performers treat the music sensitively, accurately and with considerable exuberance. At times, particularly in the coda of the second movement, they might be considered too vehement and sometimes push their tone too much. The Rachmaninov Trio (not to be confused with his later and better known Trio elegiaco) is a youthful work written in four days when the composer was 19. It is in one movement with many tempo variations and many contrasting moods. It is a self-contained piece of music of considerable drama and…

Are we living in a golden age of music-making? It’s inevitable that we always reference the past. No generation before ours has had its immediate predecessors so thoroughly chronicled. The musicians of the past are not just the stuff of legend – they are with us every day. Philippe Jaroussky need not worry about such comparisons. His is a counter-tenor whose falsetto voice is so high that it has almost lost all characteristics of that genre.  As Australian audiences know, his voice is so clear and white that it is unnervingly close to a female soprano. He may lack the utter purity and beauty of the best sopranos in the highest register but replacing it is an almost unnerving other-world open-edged timbre. The period accompaniment from the Cercle de l’Harmonie is deft and assured. The lively lyricism of JS Bach’s youngest son is heard here in a way that has perhaps not been possible for a couple of centuries. Jaroussky is an idiosyncratic counter-tenor. He certainly does not supplant my memories of past greats such as Michael Chance or our own Graham Pushee. But he is perhaps unique amongst today’s counter-tenors and must be heard to be believed. This is truly…