★★★★☆ The world might not need another version of Mozart’s various violin concerti, but Vilde Frang’s latest recording makes a good case. Her playing brims with energy, and she has found faultless partners in British period ensemble Arcangelo, ably conducted by Jonathan Cohen.  The disc opens with the lesser-recorded First Concerto, which is sometimes dismissed as a lighter work. Frang exploits this, embodying the youthful vitality of the dancing, twirling, solo violin part. After this tasteful entrée, the disc moves on to the richer Concerto No 5 (The Turkish). Here Frang has a bit more opportunity to show her range, including a bit of grunt in the lower register. She plays with a lithe, graceful sound, and utilises the full palate of tonal colours throughout. Arcangelo and their resourceful conductor encourage her in every musical decision, proving to be fully match-fit partners themselves.  The final inclusion is a stunning interpretation of the Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola, with violist Maxim Rysanov. The Andante movement was particularly beautiful, with all voices knowing when to accompany or shine. In fact, it’s this point that makes Frang such a stylish player. Her knowledge of when to pull back allows others to shine…

★★★☆☆ Before the live performance of Prokofiev’s Second Symphony, Kirill Karabits warned the audience of an “ear-lashing”. Bearing in mind the disproportionate number of retired majors and active Tory matrons among the Bournemouth Symphony’s subscriber base, I suppose it was wise.  Personally, I’d put the first movement’s shock factor (and it’s really only the first movement which has that motoric Age of Steel quality) at around that of The Rite of Spring. It won’t blow your mind (or your speakers). Despite the obvious commitment of Karabits and his players, I didn’t find the work particularly interesting. But what an incredible advance between this and its immediate symphonic predecessor! The Classical Symphony (No 1) had some lovely moments, especially in the second movement but here, it’s a case of the excellent being the enemy of the merely very good. I still have the mellifluous felicities of the London Symphony’s Sydney performance under Gergiev last November lingering in my ears.  What was interesting was the Sinfonietta, an unjustly neglected work which I’ve encountered only as a fill-up to a late ‘70s recording of Ivan the Terrible. It demonstrates that when Prokofiev set out to charm, he was absolutely beguiling! The other work…

Editor’s Choice, Orchestral  – June 2015 And the question remains – why aren’t Johannes Brahms’ Serenades staples of the concert repertoire? Would conductors rather cut to the chase and perform his four symphonies? Or is the truth more that, conceived when Brahms was grappling with the structural minefield of his First Symphony, those two works remain peculiarly difficult to classify? Ought conductors plot a quasi-symphonic pathway through their structures? Or in reality is each movement a self-contained character piece that would likely buckle under the pressure of a consciously symphonic treatment? As Riccardo Chailly points out, Serenade No 1 clocks in at 40 minutes, longer than the symphonies, and no one should be lulled into any sense of false security. The Serenades might exhibit a lightness of surface, but underneath that whimsical charm Brahms’ orchestration, his rhythmic litheness and complex web of internal tempo relationships are difficult to achieve – darn difficult in fact. Chailly’s mettle as a Brahms interpreter crystallised around his 2013 cycle of the symphonies: tempos rethought, textures thinned, traces of Germanic stodge erased. An approach that sets him up well for the Serenades; expect an artful fusion of dramatic contrast operating hand-in-hand with a certainty that…

When Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor was premiered in Naples in 1835 there was as much drama off stage as on. The San Carlo opera house was on the verge of bankruptcy and the musicians hadn’t been paid. His diva, Fanny Tacchinardi Persiani, was miffed that the tenor Edgardo’s death scene comes after hers – this in spite of the fact that he stabs himself when he hears her death knell! To make things even worse the glass harmonica player, so vital for the mad scene, quit and the composer had to rescore it with a second flute. Fortunately conductor Jesús López-Cobos seems to have had a much easier time with this fine new release starring German soprano Diana Damrau and the popular Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja. Recorded from live concert performances in Munich over four nights, this is a good if not exceptional production. The two leads make a handsome vocal couple but there are occasional ragged edges that would have been airbrushed out in a studio recording. In the big duet Verranno a te sull’aure, for example, Calleja finishes well before Damrau.  However, these are minor flaws. The ensemble singing in the sextet is a standout and Damrau shines…

The late Lorin Maazel came to Cleveland as successor to Georg Szell in the early 1970s and, for Decca, recorded a number of discs of colourful repertoire in disciplined, lively and exciting performances. It was definitely a partnership worth preserving, and this set brings together all their recordings of the period.  Separate reissues of Maazel’s work have appeared on Eloquence, including much of what is here. The Eloquence issues range wider: if you mainly want the Russian masters, or the recordings of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, Debussy’s orchestral works or the admittedly weaker set of Brahms’ Symphonies, you should opt for Eloquence. What this box does contain are two iconic performances that every music lover should own: the bracingly punchy complete Romeo and Juliet ballet of Prokofiev, and the first recording of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess to treat the work seriously as grand opera. A highly impressive performance of the Berlioz Requiem is included, and a Respighi Pines of Rome and Roman Festivals that will knock your socks off. On the final disc Maazel accompanies cellist Lynn Harrell in Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations and the Elgar Concerto, showing the breadth of his musical interests. The vibrant sound is the work of…

As a recording artist (primarily for Philips) Ozawa was never extravagantly lauded, but neither was his work as divisive as some.

The Guild label’s mission to restore Volkmar Andreae to the “pantheon of 20th century Swiss composers” continues apace with the third release of his orchestral works, with the excellent Bournemouth Symphony conducted by the composer’s grandson Marc Andreae. The Symphony in F was composed when he was just 20 and was his first large-scale orchestral work. Its debt to Brahms is undeniable, but it also shows the Wagnerian influence of Andreae’s teacher Franz Wüllner, who premiered Das Rheingold and Die Walküre. Andreae is best known for his recordings of the Bruckner symphonies and it is obvious from this early work that he has studied the Austrian master’s command of symphonic structure. Andreae was offered to succeed Mahler as conductor of the New York Philharmonic but preferred to stay with the Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich. However, like Mahler he did compose some settings of poems by Li-Po after Hermann Hesse pointed out the Tang dynasty poet’s works. Li-Tai-Pe, here beautifully sung by English tenor Benjamin Hulett, is the jewel in the crown of this album. The eight songs are worth the purchase price alone. However John Anderson’s performance of the Concertino for Oboe and Orchestra is definitely an added bonus. In all,…

Onyx’s first installment from Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires shows how foolish Deutsche Grammophon were to let her go. Pires is unafraid to take risks. Her view of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto not only enters into a pianist-composer dialogue, but also probes our relationship as consumers of this (too) regularly recorded masterwork. With Daniel Harding and the SRSO resonating in empathy, Pires stretches the opening movement to just short of 20 minutes which, although not unprecedented, blows air through the structure, allowing us time to look around, to reacquaint ourselves with what we know from a slightly oblique angle. Some of my reviewer colleagues have suggested that at this tempo Pires and Harding let the momentum droop, but personally I hear liberation within their deliberation. Pires’ analytically detailed playing tunnels deep inside the poetic soul of Beethoven’s score; no glossing over his abrupt changes of mood, the confrontation between soloist and orchestra in the slow movement given Stravinskian objectivity – although you do wish the Finale could have been a little more peppery and genuinely vivace. The Third Concerto is as bold as brass too, the first movement peaking as Pires rips through the cadenza before tip-toeing around the graceful…

Hush Live in Concert is the 14th in a series of albums released to calm and comfort families facing stressful medical procedures. It’s a compilation of Hush Foundation recordings selected by former ABC Classic FM presenter Emma Ayres. Opening with two of Paul Grabowsky’s Ten Healing Songs, it is apparent that this is anything but the conventionally soothing ‘Debussy for Daydreaming’ or ‘Relaxation Made Easy’ album. Andrea Keller’s A Castle for All is oddly uplifting as it cycles repetitively through the same series of chords. Brass, wind and percussion instruments appear to improvise around Keller’s piano, and while it has plenty of musical tension, the overall feel is not a dark one. Tony Gould’s Gentle Conversations is as it sounds – a smattering of percussion, a gentle pulse, and a layering of instruments simulate just that. Though magnificently played by the Grigoryan brothers, Songs with Strings is perhaps a touch too intense and emotionally confronting for this album. Mark Isaacs’ romantic and visually evocative The Wind in the Willows is more fitting; one can imagine a little bushland animal emerging from the tooting of Geoff Collins’ flute. The childlike journey… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month…

This combination is even more bizarre than when Klemperer and Barenboim teamed up to record the Beethoven Piano Concertos almost 50 years ago. Any initial misgivings back then were quickly dispelled: the cycle was a triumph. Lang Lang, by contrast, provided one of the most scarifying musical experiences of my life at a 2011 recital in Sydney (complete with mewling infant) with his clueless Beethoven and Albéniz so unidiomatic I gazed up at the ceiling and thought of Larrocha and Rubenstein. These CDs are mainly a pleasant surprise. Harnoncourt, whose Mozart I generally revere, (although I was bemused to read one blog that said he seemed “out of his depth here”) also has irritating tics (not to mention his “concepts”) but the collaboration works. I hope it doesn’t sound patronising to say Lang Lang is on his best behaviour and his Mozart sounds endearingly old-fashioned and elegant rather than just careful. There’s not much sturm und drang in the C Minor Concerto and it’s a universe away from what we routinely hear from, say, Brautigam and Levin, but the Vienna Philharmonic’s winds are gorgeous in their exchanges in the… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe…

Its policy towards female musicians, the behaviour of both administration and players towards Jewish colleagues during the Second World War, its variable performance standards and its exaggerated, hypocritical, archaic formality have all made the Vienna Philharmonic the most enigmatic of great orchestras. The fact that John Culshaw, arguably the greatest recording producer of the 20th century (and genius), who did more than anyone to create the orchestra’s recorded legacy, was expected to regard his invitation to attend a meeting of the Orchestra’s board as a singular honour, says it all. In fact, Culshaw’s contribution to what Germans/Austrians call a festschrift, or series of celebratory articles, contains some of the more honest comments. To paraphrase him, “At its best, it’s sublime; anything less is usually pretty awful.” Mahler, as the Director of the Vienna State (Court) Opera, observed this more than a century ago when he referred to schlamperei masquerading as “tradition” among the State Opera Orchestra, from which all VPO players are drawn. Compared to the Berlin Philharmonic or the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, it was less versatile. In… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Hyperion’s latest Romantic Piano Concertos disc features the work of Henrique Oswald and Alfredo Napoleão. Hailing from Brazil and Portugal respectively, both were born in 1852 and enjoyed fruitful careers as pedagogues, performers and composers. Oswald’s Piano Concerto in G Minor is rich with opportunities to demonstrate musical artistry and Portuguese virtuoso Artur Pizarro executes the solo line with class. It is clear Oswald, like Rachmaninov, knew how to use the form to demonstrate his own ability as a pianist. The soloist has to possess impressive stamina to complete this technical marathon. In the first movement, Pizarro embodies nervous energy as he dances around the keyboard. A brief moment of respite comes in the second movement where the orchestra gently sings the theme as Pizarro plays arpeggios. The BBC National Orchestra plays beautifully under Brabbins with no trace of difficulty in executing the challenges of the third movement. Strident opening chords make it apparent that Napoleão’s Second Piano Concerto is a dramatically different piece. The second movement is cheeky and intimate, while a gentle clarinet solo gives ample opportunity for Pizarro to play with the final movement’s character, colour and texture. This is a terrific concerto and, for this reviewer,…