Mendelssohn’s clarity of ideas allows you to immerse yourself in the instrumental strength of whoever performs them, and these two are not about to pass on their opportunity. They have great fun storming through some of the passages in the Variations Concertantes, for instance, and spiritedly negotiate the not altogether convincing whimsicalities in the second Sonata, which a more mature Mendelssohn may have been more inclined to put to one side. Had he done so, he would also have put aside some of what we might see as an attractive characteristic – the ability to find a way to deal with whatever makes life less tolerable. His was a world seen through the eyes of a very gifted young man. These rather less familiar works show us what the view was like back then, without revealing anything fundamentally unexpected in Mendelssohn’s developing musical vocabulary. The booklet notes might have benefited from a bit more information, but that is hardly a major objection. Not when you discover that the Sonata No 2 was partly written for Felix’s brother Paul. The original audience for these whimsicalities? In any case, hands up if you didn’t even know he had a brother? Overall, then,…

It is an eclectic mix, and all the better for it. Drawn from across the ages of great choral music, early works by Victoria, Palestrina and de Lassus are represented by Ascendens Christus in altum, Hodie Christus natus est, and Vindentes stellam Magi, respectively. More contemporary composers represented are Peter Phillips (Surgens Jesus) and Arvo Pärt. The latter’s Magnificat Antiphons is a glorious work. John Tavener’s setting of Away in a Manger is a far cry from the pious saccharine of the original. His setting is acerbic and almost aggressive. In 1967 Barber reworked his remarkable Adagio for Strings for eight voices. The effect is luminous. Videntes stellum, by his French contemporary Poulenc (a composer of many great religious works), is exquisite. The justly famous Miserere (mostly by Allegri, it seems) makes a great centrepiece on the disc. It is a test for the trebles in any boy’s choir, and evidence of how the sound of a boy’s choir can reduce the toughest bloke to tears. Under their long-time director, Stephen Cleobury, the singing is mostly excellent. However, the treble line is occasionally a little insecure. From the evidence of their recordings, this fine choir has had slightly better days….

There are too many ensembles and other individuals to list all of them here, but you will find names as familiar as those of cellist Daniel Yeadon, clarinettist Paul Dean, Cantillation and Gondwana Voices. Confidence is high, then, in the quality and integrity of these performances. The words they have to present are drawn from a number of writers, and in musical terms they sound fine. What the words actually are, though, is entirely lost en route from printed page to eardrum. Stanhope is mindful enough to give his music the structural cohesion to carry us across the waves of his sea, but whatever message he hopes to bring takes a dive. He refers to a variety of rather mystical sounding sources for his compositions, without being too literal about what he does with them. For instance, Aboriginal references in the title track do not mean we hear Aboriginal music. Rather, what we hear is a rhapsodic composition inspired by Stanhope thinking his Aboriginal thoughts. The result is a mix of classically-minded vocal ambience with hints of world music and a dollop of easy listening, which in themselves all work fine. However, if a shadowland is where he is headed,…

The notes to this recording mention Johann Sebastian Bach’s predilection for using the male bass voice whenever a solemn note needed to be struck or when a figure of authority was invoked. Teddy Tahu Rhodes, the bass-baritone heartthrob of Australia’s opera fans, is now maturing into such a figure. Even the cover photograph for this CD shows a new Teddy – a dignified and wise personage rather than the glamorous, dashing Don Giovanni of his recent past. The 13 arias here are all drawn from Bach’s religious cantatas – there’s not a whiff of secularity to be found. They come from eight cantatas in all, with the Cantata BWV82 “Ich habe genug” presented in full. Teddy’s voice is impressively supple, given that the arias call on his strong bass rather than letting him rip with the more naturally flexible baritonal range. And he is given equally supple support by the very fine Orchestra of the Antipodes, which has been recorded with a very natural and immediate presence. Fine too is the support given in two of the arias by soprano Sara Macliver, while featured oboist Kirsten Barry shines in the final aria from “Ich habe genug”. Lovers of Bach will…

Rather, weighty two, from Sweden’s representative in the great dawning of 20th century music. Wilhelm Stenhammar’s powerful Opus 1 was not in fact his first composition. Perhaps he listened to the openings of his first few works, and selected this as the one that would most emphatically get his career started. An understandable selection, with a piece that retains enough connections to popular works by other composers to funnel off some of their excess interest, while establishing Stenhammar as a name to conjure with, mixing in sturdy ideas all his own. He uses no particular imagery, liberal with melody but sparing of sentiment, rambling widely without ever getting lost, following unpredictable paths yet always finding logically consistent destinations. Both works are sizeable enough to demonstrate Stenhammar’s ability to control orchestral forces on a symphonic scale, when they might easily unravel into dozens of loose ends. The differences between them seem greater than they actually prove to be, so while number 2 may be shorter and less obviously demanding, they are both exhausting to listen to, offering volume, loudness and might as primary virtues. Romantic music on the heavy side of the scales. Surprising it took Hyperion 49 goes to reach…

Delve into the solid booklet to find your language of preference (obscure ones welcome), and read how these specimens of traditional music have been passed down through the generations, often unwritten. Read also how composers O’Carolan, Simon Fraser, Niel Gow, James Macpherson, and William Marshall wrote tunes that became folklore. There is enough reading material to keep you at it right the way through your simultaneous listening. Dividing the works into eight sections, based on the use of various instruments and tunings, serves an academic purpose, but more involving is the story shared by Savall and Lawrence-King that is your ticket to distant places and times. Their close examination and near fanatical attention to detail throws up a whole world of music with a naïve sophistication that is as good as a historical diorama presented in musical form. Be present as a condemned prisoner offers his air at the foot of the gallows; follow episodes from the life of Bonnie Prince Charlie; sway to reels taken to the New World by the first emigrants; and so much more. The longer you listen, the more you will find yourself rapt in this haunting enactment of bygone tradition played with such devotion.

The NZ orchestra plays competently but without distinction. The competition is considerable and everybody even remotely familiar with classical music knows it backwards. In the faster sections some of the strings are racing to catch up; the ethereal silkiness required to release the genius in the music is absent. The woodwind have a better time of it, their work in the scherzo lifting the general standard. The choirs and soloists are excellent. Setting aside the bargain of getting the complete score on a budget label, the appeal of this disc lies in the inclusion of sections of text from the play. Mendelssohn was devoted to Shakespeare, and so it is important to occasionally hear the music in context. It doesn’t make the music any better, but the connection is much more than simply academic. Emily Raymond’s Titania is the most convincing of the actors; she brings grace and style to the part. Tom Mison’s detached Oberon, on the other hand, sometimes sounds as if he’s reading it for the first time. Adrian Grove is characterful as Puck. The other actors vary considerably, often sounding arch in the way some actors do when performing “important” texts. Although the woodwinds sound clear…

Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto is as much a portal into the classico-romantic landscape as Beethoven’s fifth symphony, or Grieg’s piano concerto. As a dedicated listener, you most likely have them burned deep in your consciousness, even if you forget which is which. Hough’s working now becomes the one that a new generation of listeners will go through life hearing as the very thing Tchaikovsky had in mind, no matter Hough being his millionth interpreter. Will anyone suspect the orchestra of being recorded at too high a level? A release like this would never be issued with any distortion. Would it? Hough holds nothing back, he can hardly afford to, seeing the industrious violinist sidelined without so much as a mention. A high-fives spectacle for the audience, with the treat for all of us now of having Tchaikovsky’s concertos resolutely nailed down in this one place anew. Transcriptions of two of Tchaikovsky’s songs tie off disc 1 as pensive solo encores, while the added extras on disc 2, alternative versions of the middle movement from concerto No 2, stem from Hough’s endless quest for ultimate musical truths. Such attention has helped him earn the reputation he enjoys today, along with that…

Shostakovich’s Op 87 represents an intellectual effort that harks all the way back to J.S. Bach, and Melnikov is happy to adopt an intellectual approach of his own in the way he addresses these formidable works. On the three discs in this set Melnikov plays all the notes you hear, writes the ones you read in the booklet, and answers questions posed by Andreas Staier on the DVD. He does all these things extremely well.He engages with Shostakovich as a figure deserving respect and appreciation from other musicians, eschewing the derision that some have levelled at Shostakovich for writing music they misconstrue as plain boring. If this package is up against any particular hurdle, it is most likely to be what comes across as its rather rarified approach to a composer other sources have been working hard to domesticate. This is not where you would turn to discover Shostakovich the composer of great music. On the contrary, Shostakovich was drawn to what might easily seem rather a creatively barren subject, yet one which was so important to him that he wrote the whole set in just three and a half months, sparing himself nothing in making full use of his…

The package contains detailed explanations of every one of the 60 studies by Angelo Gilardino, an Italian composer born in 1941, who also had a long and successful international career as a concert guitarist. You may be forgiven for finding that the written descriptions in the CD notes are a good deal more entertaining than the sounds you hear. The reality of what is played is dry as a bone compared to anything you read, so tantalising references to “Pink Floyd’s electrophonic music” (sic), ghost clarinets, barbarian drums, isolated drippings of melting crystals and homages to various composers and artists boil down to fanciful notions of what you might make of these solo acoustic runs if you give your imagination freedom to run amok. You will only find out anything about either participant from the brief, untranslated biographies. Full marks, true enough, for these pieces being exactly what they set out to be: studies, with none of the characteristics of sonatas or anything else that might make more sense to a non-specialist audience. Handsome as the box may be, unless you are a guitar ace yourself, you may find one of the CDs on its own is more than you…

The Neptune movement is conspicuously faster than in his earlier EMI version, but without sounding in any way perfunctory. Mercury also whips along. Boult is not the only conductor to distinguish himself: André Previn and the LSO, during their halcyon days, turn in a wonderful performance of the ballet music from his failed opera The Perfect Fool, alternately boisterously rollicking and ethereally magical. But if I had to nominate one work to hear on this masterly anthology, it would be Egdon Heath, subtitled “Homage to Hardy”. In the almost continuous soft playing, Previn and co. evoke perfectly the sense of haunting loneliness in the place Hardy himself described as “singularly colossal and mysterious in its swarthy monotony.” The other discoveries are three of the Sanskrit hymns the composer set from the Rig Veda, which make me wonder whether any other composer “does” the mystical and otherworldly as well as Holst. Sir Charles Groves, Sir Malcolm Sargent, Norman Del Mar and Imogen Holst also make valuable contributions to this invaluable collection.

Acoustically, the sound confirms we are in authentic locations, but without an audience. The violins come off well enough, but the larger instruments (one cello, one double bass) sound too far removed to have much in the way of a grounding effect, so the overall impact is a touch deflated. The players could all do with a bit more elbow room. Kerrigan, her voice strong for a soprano, comes from something like middle distance. The balance between her and the other performers may be struck more by virtue of their relative strengths and how far their sounds effectively have to carry. Nevertheless, Kerrigan and the ensemble do make a good-sounding team. The selection and mix of tracks work well, with room left on the disc to have added one or two extra pieces. The minimal CD notes are informative enough to still be useful. While the hum of an audience attending a full live performance may have helped complete the ensemble’s presentation, the CD does what it sets out to do. It lets us appreciate how Virtuosi Tasmania sounds in typical concert style, and sense a distinct charm that makes future releases worth listening out for.