CD and Other Review

Review: BRITTEN: Serenade FINZI: Dies Natalis (Mark Padmore, Britten Sinfonia)

Britten’s Serenade presents a sort of history of English poetry, from 15th-century verse through to Blake and Tennyson, so clear diction is the key to bringing the words to life musically. Tenor Mark Padmore doesn’t disappoint.The Serenade was composed for the composer’s life partner Peter Pears and the great horn virtuoso Dennis Brain. Their 1953 recording with maestro Eugene Goossens (Decca/Eloquence) remains the definitive version, but Padmore and the Britten Sinfonia have plenty of fresh insights almost 60 years on. I’m also a fan of the late Anthony Rolfe-Johnson on Chandos. Padmore doesn’t quite match Rolfe-Johnson’s light, limpid gait in the florid Hymn, but his lean, muscular tone, sweetened with generous vibrato, has more immediate drama throughout. The shimmering Sinfonia strings show finesse in the music of their namesake, while the appropriately named Stephen Bell provides energetic, richly shaded phrasing and precise intonation on horn. Britten’s darker Nocturne for tenor, seven obbligato instruments and strings (1958) shows even more stunning invention from the master of orchestral colour. Most noteworthy are the sinister bassoon and crisp pizzicato of the second movement, delicate harp in the third and the arrestingly powerful timpani solo in the fifth. With so many Serenades in all-Britten…

June 14, 2012
CD and Other Review

Review: DEBUSSY: Clair de Lune, Songs (Natalie Dessay, Philippe Cassard)

The most surprising aspect of this CD is that it took until now to happen. Natalie Dessay’s light, nimble soprano has always seemed a natural fit for French art song, yet she has shied away from it on disc, focusing her recorded efforts instead on aria discs and Baroque repertoire. Enter pianist Philippe Cassard, who was so impressed by Dessay’s performance as Mélisande that he wrote to her to suggest this recital of early songs by Debussy. Delicate and dreamy heroines have long been Dessay’s forte onstage, and she conveys those qualities deftly in these lyrical miniatures too – with just a dash of gamine mischief to spice up the proceedings. Her voice has lost a little of its lustre: her upper register sounds threadbare in spots, and there is, as always, a brittle quality to her singing which can be an acquired taste. Yet she evokes the fin-de-siècle milieu of these songs – a heady cocktail of languor and quivering passion – with impeccable style: shimmering in Nuit d’étoiles and Les cloches, trilling her way perkily through Pierrot and turning in a melancholy tour de force in the cantata La damoiselle élue, which features a ravishing cameo by mezzo…

June 14, 2012
CD and Other Review

Review: Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg

Among the more daring projects underway for the Wagner centenary is Dutch-based PentaTone’s plan to record Wagner’s ten later operas on SACD, all from concert performances and all conducted by seasoned Wagnerian Marek Janowski. Following a superb sonic rendition of The Flying Dutchman last year, here we have Die Meistersinger, to be followed rapidly by Parsifal next month. Wagner’s comic masterpiece can be a hard act to pull off, requiring dramatic singers with stamina who can act with a lightness of touch when required. Quite a feat, and one that nearly comes off here, if not quite. First, the pluses. The sonic engineering is superb – not quite as orchestrally revelatory as the Dutchman but you’ll be hard pressed to find a better sounding opera recording. Albert Dohmen as Hans Sachs is also mightily impressive, firm of tone and offering great textual insight into this multifaceted character. Edith Haller’s Eva is charming and Dietrich Henschel makes Beckmesser a formidable rival, if pushed at the very top of the voice. The sense of ensemble is also excellent with fine chorus work and a great sense of occasion, all moving forward swimmingly in Janowski’s pacey reading. It’s the two… Continue reading Get…

May 31, 2012
CD and Other Review

Review: RACHMANINOV: Symphony No 2 (MSO/Otaka)

My introduction to Rachmaninov’ s Second Symphony was a welcome distraction from Camus, Jane Austen and Virgil studies for my HSC. I loved it from the start. My introduction to Tadaaki Otaka’s first splendid version, with the BBC Welsh National Orchestra, came many years later and I was equally impressed. He continues to acquit himself as a masterful and instinctive Rachmaninov interpreter in a rendition which wins hands down, in both performance and recording, against Ashkenazy’s tepid, enervated reading with the Sydney Symphony, itself a mere epigone of that conductor’s radiant Concertgebouw version.  The secret in this potentially sprawling work is to gauge the pulse of the opening movement, making the ebb and flow convincing and grading the climaxes – in other words, keeping your powder dry. No other symphony I know radiates such a powerfully Russian sense of yearning amid the glamorous scoring, enriched by Otaka’s haunting, affectionate (without appearing to milk every bar of emotion) and ultimately stirring insights. Tempi are well judged – I particularly responded to the precision in the Prokofiev-like spikiness of the Scherzo and the tenuto used to great effect just before the final climax.  A colleague whom I knew had been in the…

May 31, 2012
CD and Other Review

Review: BEETHOVEN: Missa Solemnis (LPO/Eschenbach)

I always found Christoph Eschenbach a much better pianist than conductor: his 1968 recording of Beethoven’s First Concerto with Karajan was unforgettable and his insights into the Op 111 Sonata many years later ranks among the best. By contrast, his conducting often seems stodgy. So this stunning performance and recording of the Missa Solemnis came as a revelation. The London Philharmonic Orchestra is in sizzling and quite virtuosic form. Running to just over 80 minutes, tempos are mainstream. I was hurtled backward in my chair – like, I imagine, most of the audience – with the velocity and ferocity of the choral fugue in the Gloria. The (appropriately) manic sound of the choir in Beethoven’s cruel tessitura of this paroxysm remind me that he may well have been mad when he composed it. The singing is largely undiffereniated and unnuanced and the diction is pretty unclear, but the result is impressive nonetheless.  No one will ever eclipse Klemperer’s implacable juggernaut (EMI) here. The soloists are more than satisfactory, although the soprano Anne Schwanewilms and Nicolai Schukoff are the most distinguished of the four. Dietrich Henschel is no Martti Talvela. Pieter Schoeman’s solo violin in the Benedictus is balm for the…

May 31, 2012
CD and Other Review

Review: Liszt: My Piano Hero (Lang Lang, Vienna Phil/Gergiev)

If you want a disc of Liszt’s Greatest Hits you could do worse than have Lang Lang as your guide. The hype and the hysterical fan base of the megastar Chinese pianist have not entirely managed to obscure the fact that he continues to mature as an artist. Lang has said Liszt is a special composer for him, and his playing on this disc demonstrates that affinity very clearly.  What a wide-ranging composer Liszt was. I recently reviewed Brendel’s Liszt recordings, which concentrate on the inward, philosophical late works. Lang opts for Liszt the showman: cascades of glistening scales and fancy finger work (La Campanella), surging double octaves (Hungarian Rhapsody No 6) and so on. But Liszt also set the ladies swooning with the beauty of his tone and the breathless quality of his rubato, and Lang understands this side of the composer as well. In Liebestraum and the transcription of Schubert’s Ave Maria he achieves a perfect balance: not over-romanticised but not foursquare either.  The thundering virtuoso and the gentle poet come together in Liszt’s First Piano Concerto − one of the best piano concertos ever written, in my opinion. This performance, recorded live with Gergiev and the Vienna Philharmonic,…

May 31, 2012
CD and Other Review

Review: RAVEL, MESSIAEN, DUTILLEUX: Poemes (Renee Fleming)

For a singer so attuned to the undulating tones of the French language, Renée Fleming has recorded relatively little Gallic repertoire apart from the Massenet operas. This album redresses the balance in a tour de force of 20th-century orchestral songs. In Ravel’s Shéhérazade, the American soprano’s rich, finely matured instrument floats above the opulent orchestration and serpentine flute. Her operatic sense of storytelling embodies Scheherazade herself, who tantalises her king and captor with one tale after another in 1,001 Arabian Nights. In some declamatory passages, however, her voice loses the lustre and carefully placed diction heard elsewhere. Messiaen’s erotic yet deeply spiritual Poèmes for Mi, settings of his own text dedicated to his first wife, were written almost 40 years after Shéhérazade. Fleming exerts a siren-like thrall when she is left exposed in the orchestra’s pregnant pauses. She caresses the ear with impeccable intonation, luxuriating in the long, melismatic “Alleluia”. Later in the cycle, she unveils the satisfying warmth of her lower range, and exploits her keen dramatic instinct in the deranged laughter and visceral imagery of Terror. Alan Gilbert and the Orchestre Philharmonique give these challenging pieces their all in a kaleidoscope of colours, textures and nuances, shimmering strings…

May 17, 2012
CD and Other Review

Review: RACHMANINOV: Symphony No 3, Caprice Bohemien, Vocalise (RLPO/Petrenko)

Perversely, I was hoping that this Rachmaninov Third Symphony would be a dud, making it easier to recommend unequivocally the recent Noseda/BBC Philharmonic recording on Chandos – fat chance with these forces. EMI (or whatever they’re called now after yet another acquisition) have done their latest star recruits proud in this elusive work, which combines elegance, nostalgia, wistfulness and sheer glamour. The contoured phrasing is as curvaceous as Betty Grable’s hips (not as bizarre an analogy as you might first think, as this work is as suffused – consciously or otherwise –  as much with the spirit of Hollywood as Romanov Russia). The RLPO’s string tone is fabulously lush but the playing is refined without ever a hint of blowziness in the “big” tunes, with both pellucid textures and dramatic energy throughout: I’ve never heard the opening of the finale or its reprise at the very end played with such manic velocity, beautifully captured by EMI’s engineers. The central movement has a captivating tenderness and the rhythms in the Scherzo interlude are whip-crackingly precise. Petrenko also avoids the episodic or fragmented approach one sometimes hears. The other pieces on the CD make it a calling card for the RLPO’s newfound…

May 17, 2012
CD and Other Review

Review: Music of the Russian Avant-garde 1905-1926

The first two decades of the 20th century were a time of radical experimentation in European art music, and St Petersburg was by no means behind the times. Avant-garde music flourished during and for some time after the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. It wasn’t until the rise of Stalin that progressive modernism was actively stifled. We know the struggles faced by Shostakovich, but many of his compatriots abandoned their stylistic experiments (Popov), emigrated (Lourié), or mysteriously disappeared. Roger Woodward gives us a cross-section of miniatures written between 1905 (Scriabin’s first Feuillet d’album) and 1926 (Mosolov’s Two Nocturnes). Alexander Scriabin was the father of this school, literally so in the case of his son Julian, represented here by three preludes. Julian’s music was sophisticated and promising, but he died at the age of 11. Not all artworks that are stylistically groundbreaking or historically important are masterpieces. (How often do we listen to Schoenberg and Cage, compared to Sibelius and Copland?) Much of this music sounds tentative as a composer feels his way into new harmonic realms. This is certainly true of Obuhkov’s fragmentary Tableaux psychologiques of 1915. Yet when the new language is focussed, as in Stanchinsky’s Canon (1908), the result…

May 17, 2012
CD and Other Review

Review: French Impressions: Ravel, Saint-Saens, Franck Violin Sonatas (Joshua Bell, Jeremy Denk)

Joshua Bell’s first disc of sonatas with Sony is well worth the wait. At its centre is the ever-popular sonata by Franck, alongside works by Saint-Saëns and Ravel. Both Bell and his accompanist friend Jeremy Denk revel in the ever-changing impressionistic colours of harmony and timbre that this repertory evokes and demands. There is plenty of Gallic flair in the Franck, and the tension between stasis and forward movements is finely judged, resulting in some exhilarating climaxes. The interweaving of major and minor elements in the famous finale are beautifully pointed by the violin and expertly underpinned by the piano. Bell’s judicious but unashamed use of sweet tone and sweeping portamenti is entirely appropriate. Saint-Saëns’s sonata is immediately appealing, with an imposing opening movement full of fire and passion succeeded by some improvisatory languor and concluding with an elegant, high-spirited finale with a dash of gypsy fiddling thrown in. By contrast, the worldly sophistication of Ravel gives Bell a chance to display some other colours, especially in the Blues movement where the violin is by turns banjo strummer or jazz chanteuse. Bell and Denk face steep competition in the Franck; this splendid trio of sonatas makes a winning proposition.

May 17, 2012
CD and Other Review

Review: MEALOR: A Tender Light, Choral Works (Tenebrae, Royal Philharmonic Orch)

Like me, you may have found yourself glued to the telly last April to watch the latest royal wedding. Like me, your ears may have been glued in particular to a short choral work that was sung during the ceremony. That piece was Ubi caritas by Paul Mealor, who has been described by the New York Times as “one of the most important composers to have emerged in Welsh choral music since William Mathias”. Your familiarity or otherwise with Mathias should not inform your opinion of Mealor, as his is an impressive talent.  This CD features not only the little wedding gem but an entire collection of the composer’s work for choir and it’s mostly very strong. The opening quadrant of madrigals Now sleeps the crimson petal features gorgeously subtle twists of harmony and Salvator mundi tempers strident modal declamations with memorable ornamentations. However the disc dips a bit with the Stabat Mater, which tends to cycle through clichés to simplistic emotional effect (Mealor describes this as the “most personal work on the disc”, which may be revealing). Perhaps the reason Mealor has become the royals’ latest go-to composer is that he’s such a known quantity; each piece here is so…

May 8, 2012
CD and Other Review

Review: GRIEG: Holberg Suite, String Quartet (ACO/Tognetti)

Richard Tognetti and the ACO are in sparkling form in this wonderfully enjoyable program of Grieg. The major work here is Tognetti’s skilful transcription of String Quartet No 1 in G minor, Op 27, the composer’s only extant complete work in the genre. Digging into the almost Piazzolla-like rhythms of the opening movement, the band delivers a zesty account of this colourful score. The contrasting episodes of the Romanze and the Intermezzo are handled deftly, while the concluding Saltarello has an almost manic intensity. By way of contrast we are then offered the Two Elegiac Melodies, Op 34. These popular but all too brief works are played superbly; their aching melancholy lit by beauty of tone and delicacy of ensemble. Erotikk from the Lyric Pieces is a scintillating miniature, more nostalgic than sensual, sensitively arranged by Tognetti for solo violin and orchestra. What better way to finish than with the Holberg Suite? At pains to preserve the dance-like quality of Grieg’s neo-Baroque masterpiece, the orchestra achieves a perfect blend of energy and lightness throughout. Admirable rhythmic acuity characterises the Praeludium, the courtly intimacy of the Sarabande contrasts well with the crisply accented Gavotte. The fervent Air, with its… Continue reading…

May 8, 2012
CD and Other Review

Review: SALTARELLO: music for viola d’amore (Garth Knox)

A saltarello is a medieval dance named for its leaping steps (“little hop” in Italian). One might wonder why this meditative, atmospheric album takes a lively dance form as its title when there is only one specimen on the program. In fact it’s the three players who do the jumping – across nine centuries of music, and between Garth Knox’s rustic medieval fiddle, seven-string viola d’amore and modern viola. He switches weapons seamlessly from one track to the next and demonstrates poetic phrasing and technical mastery with all three. Hildegard von Bingen’s Ave, generosa is the earliest music heard here, echoing through time in a vibrato-less, double-stopped fiddle version capturing both soaring chant and drone. A yearning vocal quality resonates throughout this inspired instrumental program, from lilting variations on the folksong Black is the Colour of my True Love’s Hair to Dowland’s Flow My Tears and Purcell’s Music for a While, unerringly matched in mood by Agnès Vesterman’s nuanced cello basslines. Hearing such timeless songs in Knox’s arrangements is to hear them as if they were always intended for these instruments. Curiously, the only work originally scored for viola d’amore, Vivaldi’s concerto RV393, is the least convincing for its lack…

May 8, 2012