Plenty of hype arrives with this release from young Polish pianist Rafal Blechacz, but little detail. My Internet trawling reveals that he was born in 1985, and at the age of 20 won all five sections of the Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. He so impressed the judges that they awarded no second prize. Blechacz has recorded three previous discs for Deutsche Grammophon, of Chopin Preludes and concertos, and sonatas by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Here he gives us a recital of early 20th-century French and Polish music. In the accompanying note Blechacz sites Michelangeli as his idol in Debussy, but his playing strikes me as less soft-edged than that of the mighty Italian. There is a crispness to the Toccata from Pour le piano, and a bell-like ping to the pentatonic peals of Pagodes from the Estampes suite, that bring to mind his older Polish compatriot Krystian Zimermann. High praise indeed. Blechacz’s fluidity and supreme dynamic control are astonishing, and he shows attention to fine detail. He can also produce a full tone, as in the radiant climax to L’Isle joyeuse, without it turning clangourous. He is equally fine in the Szymanowski pieces, but I wish he had recorded…

This year marks the 300th anniversary of the birth of that gifted flautist, composer and enlightened patron of the arts, King Frederick the Great of Prussia. To celebrate, Emmanuel Pahud presents a 2-CD set of works by the glittering circle of musicians that Frederick gathered about him in Berlin. He kicks off with what is probably the most impressive work on the disc, one of CPE Bach’s most magnificent concertos, which shows the forward-looking qualities that make him the most interesting composer of the period. We then have charming works by Benda, Quantz and a promising example by the royal master himself. All are delightful. The second CD is even better, its more intimate chamber works ranging from a Trio Sonata from JS Bach’s Musical Offering through to two compelling sonatas from Bach’s eldest son. Frederick’s contribution is complemented by that of his (more talented?) sister, Anna Amalia, Princess of Prussia. It goes without saying that Pahud, principal flautist with the Berlin Philharmonic, shines throughout and although he eschews a period instrument his style is perfectly tempered to the performance practice of the day. The Kammerakademie Potsdam provides spirited support, led by the excellent Trevor Pinnock on harpsichord.

Salvatore Licitra’s tragic death in a motorcycle accident last year hit the opera world hard. The tenor was one of his generation’s brightest stars, and at just 43 should have had a long and distinguished career ahead of him. Now Sony – with whom Licitra recorded a number of operas and solo albums – has released this 2-CD compilation in his honour. It’s a thrilling, poignant celebration of an artist in his prime, his voice bright, muscular and brimming with emotion. Most of the great Italian tenor repertoire is represented here – Verdi and Puccini dominate, along with various verismo favourites. From the bracing bravado of Di quella pira to a lovely Addio, fiorito asil, Licitra is in magnificent form. It’s repertoire he was born to sing: Cavaradossi, Canio, Manrico and all their brethren fit him ideally. The second disc shows Licitra’s lighter side, with selections from the album Duetto (with tenor Marcelo Álvarez) and previously unreleased recordings of Italian songs. Clearly aimed at the crossover market, the duets are on the syrupy side, but the quality of the singing is exceptional. Better yet are Licitra’s charming renditions of songs like Funiculi funiculà and O sole mio, sung with unmistakably…

In 1960, Italian pianist Maurizio Pollini won the International Chopin Piano Competition. EMI instantly took him to the recording studio, where he made a famous recording of Chopin’s E-Minor Piano Concerto with conductor Paul Kletzki. It has never left the catalogue. As music lovers and recording executives began rubbing their hands in anticipation, Pollini recorded the two sets of Chopin Études – but the young artist was not ready to be drawn into this whirlwind. Further sessions produced personality clashes, and Pollini abandoned recording for ten years. Eventually he signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon.  At Pollini’s insistence the EMI Études were never released. Fifty years later the recording is in the public domain and makes its debut, newly remastered from Testament. The stress and the arguments are ancient history. What remains is the brilliance of a young virtuoso in pieces that are designed to show off keyboard prowess: not only speed and accuracy but also the pianist’s way with legato (a melting Étude Op 25 No 1). This is very good 1960 piano sound. The instrument is recorded in close-up, as opposed to the concert hall acoustic Pollini has favoured since. Close scrutiny is no problem; indeed, it’s…

I dimly recall a Decca release in the early 1970s of Ashkenazy in the Rachmaninov Suite No 1 (Fantasie Tableau for two pianos, Op 5) with André Previn. I doubt whether it could have had more charm than this performance from Vladimir and his son Vovka. The rapport between the two pianists is seemingly effortless in drawing the listener into this magical music. I particularly responded to the gentle swirling effects of the introductory barcarolle and to the alternating intensity and ravishing lyricism of the central two movements, La Nuit, L’Amour (“Night…Love”) and Les larmes, (“Tears”). Night on the Bald Mountain doesn’t have quite the same spellbinding quality. I found the staccato passages a little relentless, although there’s clearly no other way to play them. Glinka’s Valse-Fantasie lends itself perfectly to duo piano treatment. It could have been penned by Tchaikovsky at his most melancholy.  Wonderful as they are, not even the spectacular virtuosity and chemistry of these two pianists can replicate the colour, glamour and visceral excitement of the orchestral version of Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor. The Scriabin Fantasy in A Minor is somewhat more structured and less amorphous than so much of his output, described by a friend…

It was only a matter of time before Stephen Hough, already the soloist of highly acclaimed Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky concerto cycles, added his name to the list of those who have recorded three of the most popular piano concertos of all time. Can any new insights be garnered here? With Hough, nothing is ever formulaic. His most successful offering is the Second Concerto of Liszt. Andrew Litton constantly propels the music forward, while allowing for plenty of poetry to emerge in the slow movement. Put next to Richter’s mercurial 1961 accounts of the Liszt concertos with the London Symphony under Kirill Kondrashin, Hough seems rather earthbound at the start of the First Concerto. Things improve as the work progresses though, with his beautifully limpid slow movement and a strong finale. Grieg’s hometown orchestra serves him well in his concerto, with some spirited brass playing and refined string work. Hough is quite attentive to detail, but never loses sight of the bigger Romantic picture. This is an account free of gimmicks that gives a wonderful balance of introversion and extroversion. In an overcrowded field, this disc may not be quite at the top of the pile, but there is still a…

What a delightful disc. Or should I not use that adjective? It is, after all, a fallback response to the hideous tie you get from your auntie at Christmas. How about: relaxing? Or invigorating? All these epithets apply to the two early concertante works that Abbado and his handpicked Orchestra Mozart give us here. The performances seem to have been recorded during a tour (along with others in the same Mozart series): two venues are given for the Sinfonia Concertante, although whether the recordings are live is unclear. It doesn’t matter; the playing is exemplary and there is no discernible audience noise. Notable contributions are made by all the soloists. In the Sinfonia Concertante I was most taken with the clarinet of Alessandro Carbonare and the oboe of Lucas Macías Navarro, both musicians characterful and wonderfully accurate. In the Concerto for Flute and Harp the two soloists play as one, and flautist Jacques Zoon’s silvery tone is beautifully caught in the airy acoustic of the Haydn Auditorium in Bolzano. It is a tone we know well: Zoon was first flute of the Concertgebouw Orchestra under Chailly, the Berlin Philharmonic under Abbado, then the Boston Symphony. Abbado sets perfect… Continue reading Get…

Recent years have seen a renaissance of interest in the solo trumpet with a good handful of players reaching out beyond the Haydn and Hummel to explore more challenging contemporary repertoire. Philippe Shartz ensured a limited market for his brave foray by including Birtwistle’s demanding Endless Parade on his excellent Chandos album, but here Alison Balsom plays a safer hand with equal success in a program of edgy yet approachable “modern” works. The appetiser and title work is James MacMillan’s Seraph, a piece dedicated to Balsom, which wittily misquotes the opening of the Haydn concerto before taking us on an involving neo-classical journey. The main course, however, is a pair of tangy, postwar works from either side of the iron curtain. The Arutiunian concerto with its attractive Armenian inflections has had several outings on CD and here proves as engaging as ever. The discovery for me was the 15-minute rhapsody by the German composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann. Like Tippett in A Child Of Our Time, Zimmermann uses a spiritual, in this case Nobody Knows De Trouble I See as a metaphor for the need for racial understanding. It’s a beautiful work, as finely calculated as a Hopper painting and like…

Hot on the heels of his Pushkin Romances and Tchaikovsky Romances, both released on the Delos label, Dmitri Hvorostovsky makes his Ondine début by continuing the series, this time with a recital of Rachmaninov. His muscular baritone is broodingly at ease in these songs, which deal predominantly with themes of bitterness, regret and ill-fated love, all of it couched in rich and picturesque verse. Here and there, one might wish for a lighter touch or a silkier tone – Hvorostovsky’s singing is more forceful than beautiful, but his musicality is rock solid, and his dramatic sense as compelling on disc as it is on stage. Indeed, his delivery is so robust, and his voice so sonorous, that many of the songs seem to morph into miniature arias. Such an approach might be the undoing of German or French art songs, but Rachmaninov’s romances, whose poetry and illustrative piano parts (deftly dispatched here by Hvorostovsky’s frequent recital partner Ivari Ilja) are already quite operatic in scope, seem almost to demand it. The desperate agony of It is time!, the desolation of Yesterday We Met, and the pleas of Oh no, I beg you, do not leave! are all brought to compelling…

Hélène Grimaud has provided a thoughtful program for this, her first ever Mozart recording. The two concertos, both in sunny major keys, are not among the most often recorded of the composer’s output, and there is a substantial addition in the form of a concert aria, originally from Idomeneo, for soprano and orchestra with piano obbligato. The recording is full-blooded, not unlike Grimaud’s playing. This is not the gentle, caressing Mozart of Maria João Pires. Grimaud finds both strength and depth in the Adagio movement of the A Major Concerto (No 23, K488), taken slower than usual, and a bubbling vivacity in the work’s Allegro assai finale. Similarly fine pianism characterises the F Major Concerto (No 19, K459), where she conveys the carefree nature of one of Mozart’s brightest and breeziest works. Erdmann sings the concert aria with poise, understanding and spot on intonation. In a live context she may have a small voice, but it records beautifully. Again Grimaud’s piano is an asset. The downside of this disc lies in the fact that these are live concert recordings. In big dramatic works the presence of an audience can galvanise a performer, but this is not so necessary in Mozart….

Märkl’s Debussy series on the Naxos label, of which this is Volume 7, has enjoyed a consistent run of hits with very few misses.

Given that Paul McCartney is listed in the Guinness World Records book, that ur-text of veracity, as “the most successful composer of all time”, it’s no surprise his talents as a performer have been somewhat overlooked. This collection of jazz standards and showtunes showcases McCartney as a singer who, while not possessed of the most opulent timbre, has a sweet voice and a knack for making lyrics ring true, especially when it comes to lurve. But the gazillion-dollar question still looms: why is the most successful composer of all time singing covers? OK, there are two originals on this disc, but neither My Valentine (guest harmonica from Stevie Wonder) nor Only Our Hearts (Eric Clapton on guitar) quite stand up to the gems of the American songbook on the disc. Normally you wouldn’t expect them to – but this is the man who wrote Eleanor Rigby. As a singer, McCartney is most convincing on the songs made famous by Fats Waller. The title Kisses on the Bottom comes from I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter), and the album also includes It’s Only a Paper Moon and My Very Good Friend the Milkman. Diana Krall and her band…