Best known for orchestral works and grand opera, the Russian group of composers known as “The Mighty Handful” (Balakïrev, Borodin, Cui, Rimsky-Korsakov and Mussorgsky) are found here in the salon, with a bouquet of piano works. The centrepiece is Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, played in the original version. British pianist Philip Edward Fisher is most convincing in its lighter episodes, serving up an effervescent Ballet of the Chickens in their Eggs. For the hulking Polish cart Bydlo and the rousing Great Gate at Kiev finale, his playing is a touch too staid and introspective, never rising above forte or the constraints of “niceness”. Balakïrev’s Islamey, meanwhile, is dissected by Fisher with refreshing rigour. It’s a laudable attempt to make musical sense of a work often abused as a vehicle for virtuosity, especially by competition pianists. Still, although technically assured, Fisher’s account doesn’t quite gel: the pedalling is dry, the transitions between passages choppy. Not much Orientalist rapture here. Happily, Fisher relaxes into a more lyrical mood for Borodin’s beguiling, rather Tchaikovskian Petite Suite – the real discovery of this release. One wonders why its dreamy Serenade is not heard more often on compilations of the Piano-Music-to-Make-You-Swoon variety. The very forgettable Cui…

In the post-war years of severe, avant-garde experimentation, it was music made with the human voice that was unafraid to embrace humour and joie de vivre. English choral adventurer Paul Hillier describes the spoken-word, sung, screamed and belched works (composed between 1940 and 1980) on this eclectic disc as “pieces [that] tell a story… but avoid getting to the point”. Or to take a leaf out of John Cage’s philosophy book: “I have nothing to say and I am saying it”.  Literature buffs will get a kick out of Cage’s rhythmic, irritatingly catchy Story, a setting of Gertrude Stein’s Dr Seuss-esque children’s verse, “Once upon a time the world was round/and you could go on it around and around,” which pings around in fragmented repetitions as five vocalists revel in the collapse of language. The full effect is closely miked and rendered powerfully in SACD sound. Looming large on the Lichtenstein-style front cover is Cathy Berberian, Berio’s first wife and a singer-actor, who championed unusual techniques and presides over the spirit of the album as fairy godmother. Her Stripsody is the most versatile and virtuosic piece here, a “Pop Art aria” exploring the onomatopoeic world of comic strips – “Vrrop”, “Yowee”,…

The very first Mozart violin concerto I ever heard was the composer’s first, dating from 1773, when Mozart was just 17. The performance was by David Oistrakh, and I found it simply wondrous, especially the Adagio movement, with the violin arching with aching beauty over the orchestra. That was many years ago, when I was a very young teenager. It was the natural springboard to the other four violin concertos, which each mirror Mozart’s increasing maturity. I love that concerto still, and Richard Tognetti and the ACO capture perfectly its youthful brilliance and zest. In fact, all three concertos heard here, plus the Rondo and Adagio, are presented in a way which confirms that our ACO is one of the very finest chamber orchestra ensembles performing anywhere in the world today. Particularly delightful in this recording are Richard Tognetti’s cadenzas, which seem to have grown organically from the source-material. There is… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Is this another example of repertoire creep? Recently I reviewed (favorably) a Bruckner symphony played by a chamber orchestra. Now Brahms’s Violin Concerto turns up. The Mahler Chamber Orchestra is the ideal partner here, as Isabelle Faust’s reading eschews the sprawling grandeur of some interpretations but it’s in no sense Brahms-Lite. Poetry and introspection abound in Faust’s playing, while her vibrato is restrained and her phrasing warm. At 37 minutes, it’s on the swift end of the tempo spectrum but is never remotely perfunctory or generalised. One interesting aspect is her use of Busoni’s 1913 cadenza with timpani accompaniment (inspired by its similar use in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto?) Brahms had a soft spot for Busoni, once declaring he would mentor the younger composer in the same way Schumann did Brahms. The Second Sextet, almost equally significant to the concerto, makes me marvel at how Brahms, even at a relatively young age, could suffuse his music with an autumnal melancholy and sense of yearning, seldom more than here in a work allegedly written “on the rebound”. Yet there remains an exquisite ambiguity of veiled emotions here. The performance of the Sextet begins with what seems like an extended trill on the…

The Cello Symphony was one of Britten’s few substantial pieces of abstract symphonic music, and rather than dubbing it a concerto he places the soloist on more equal footing within the orchestral texture. The orchestration is just as vivid as his music for voice, but it is also one of the composer’s most fierce and challenging scores. The Chandos sound gives much-needed warmth to this angular, thorny terrain. The cello is less forward – and more introspective – than in Pieter Wispelwey’s recent recording, maintaining Britten’s desired balance. By the same token, Paul Watkins doesn’t have quite as much bite as the work’s dedicatee Rostropovich in the 1965 premiere recording conducted by Britten. Watkins maintains edge-of-your-seat energy throughout, particularly in the gutsy Presto inquieto where his virtuosic flair is matched by profound lyricism. The third-movement cadenza and its burnished trumpet obbligato are a highlight. In the Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, Edward Gardner expertly explores the contrast in Britten’s palette, most effectively in the limpid precision of the BBC Philharmonic strings. The North Sea’s vast beauty, the lilt of maritime village life, and the underlying warning of what the harsh elements may have in store – all these are…

This performance of Tchaikovsky’s music to Shakespeare’s The Tempest may well inspire the listener to exclaim “O brave new world that hath such people in it”, but I doubt whether the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture would provoke a similar reaction in this surprisingly staid excursion by firebrand conductor Gustavo Dudamel. To take one example, the canonic exchanges between the lower woodwinds and the strings in the first fight sequence lack the needed tension. The Tempest fares better. The exquisite evocation of the magic island and surrounding ocean is simply ravishing and well captured by Dudamel and co. Likewise the love music, initially “tender and restrained” (to quote the sleeve notes), gradually becomes almost incandescent – and certainly more dramatic than the equivalent scene in the play. Here the French horn sounds a little tentative but strings and woodwinds are alert and Dudamel certainly knows how to milk the climaxes.  Unfortunately,… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Is there really room for yet another recording of these two Rachmaninov warhorses? For Yuja, yes. Her playing is fresh and wondrously alive, in both pieces. And Claudio Abbado’s conducting is astonishing, delineated with absolute chamber-like clarity. Wang combines strength and delicacy, but most appealing in her playing is her sharp articulation of phrasing and that indefinable stamp of pianistic authority. In the Rhapsody the famous 18th variation has all the limpid beauty it demands, and the 24th accentuates the fantastical, swaggering pseudo-Orientalism of its finale. Her final dying notes have all the wry sarcasm which so cleverly and affectionately mocks all that has gone before, delivered with an offhand grace I’ve seldom heard before. It’s totally delicious stuff. And the Second, deservedly the most famous of Rachmaninov’s concertos, is played with a poise and steel which totally belies the impish pianist’s image on the CD cover.  These special readings seem to come from live performances – the Concerto gives this away with a snatch of applause at the end, but there is no other indication of this. The sound quality is as detailed as the finest studio recording; both the piano and orchestra are caught in awesome fidelity. This…

This fanciful biopic casts light on Mozart’s older sister Maria Anna “Nannerl”, a fine singer and instrumentalist in her own right whose ambitions naturally took a backseat to the boy wonder’s prodigious gifts. Based in part on the correspondence of their demanding father Leopold Mozart, the account is a quintessentially French one set in the 1760s when the children are aged 10 and 15, following the imagined events that unfold during performing tours to Paris and Versailles. Nannerl’s journey centres on two fictionalised encounters with French royalty. The first, with the cloistered, illegitimate 12-year-old daughter of Louis XV, echoes the tragedy of her own thwarted potential. As Louise de France, Lisa Féret is blandly benign and monochrome, making it difficult to care about the rapport between the two young girls, who are in fact real-life sisters. Meanwhile, the teenage Nannerl’s sexual awakening becomes a focus with the help of the brooding Dauphin’s smouldering gaze (Clovis Fouin). The attraction is inextricably linked with his intense admiration of her music, freeing her creative spirit – temporarily, at least. She is forced to dress as a boy in order to consort with the prince in public, but this narrative tool, again designed to…

Seraphim takes its name from the opening Handel aria praising the highest order of angels. Sara Macliver, appropriately, is one of Australia’s most angelic-voiced sopranos, and this selection of recordings old and new presents a roughly chronological traversal of joyful and gentle music from the Baroque to popular music. ABC Classics’ ten-year portrait of the Perth-born singer comprises just over half a disc of new recordings, with the first section given over to jubilant Baroque arias in which her radiant personality shines through. The title track is elegant and buoyant under the Orchestra of the Antipodes and Brett Weymark, Macliver tossing off coloratura passages with brilliance and precision, matched by trumpet soloist Leanne Sullivan. Her diction, however, isn’t always as clear as her melodic lines. But in Purcell’s Hark! The Echoing Air from The Fairy Queen, she channels Emma Kirkby in her prime. Less convincing are the two contemporary offerings: a stiflingly smooth rendition of Bernstein’s Somewhere – no swell, no surge of emotion – and a similarly unremarkable Joni Mitchell cover. There’s no question Macliver’s silvery tone and supreme musicianship are a joy to hear, but Seraphim is all green pastures (none greener than Canteloube’s Baïlero) without any of…

Just when you thought the market for Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater had reached saturation point, here’s Deutsche Grammophon with yet another. Although it’s called A Tribute to Pergolesi, the title could as easily have been A Vehicle for Anna Netrebko, since the Russian soprano is surely its raison d’être. The repertoire is a surprising choice for Netrebko, but this recording is remarkably effective. Netrebko’s voice is about a size larger than one would usually expect in this repertoire, and lacks the pinpoint precision of a typical Baroque specialist, but she wields it with such ardency and lustrous, expansive sound that she’s hard to resist. Young contralto Marianna Pizzolato is less gripping but no less lovely. Underpinned by Pappano’s elegant, sympathetic conducting, the two singers make a striking pair.  The Stabat Mater itself is beautifully, if not sensationally performed, but what really clinches this tribute are the less familiar secular cantatas which precede the main event. Pizzolato’s limpid account of Questo è il piano is a minor revelation, and Netrebko’s fiery Nel chiuso centro is a major one – operatic yet not overblown, it’s a 16-minute précis of what makes this soprano such a captivating performer and thrilling proof that Pergolesi’s talent…

David Berlin and Len Vorster deliver the music superbly, with dazzling playing of the highest order. Along with Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber was the composer who did the most to secure the place of American composition during the middle of the 20th century. His award-winning Cello Sonata is a compelling work in which his musical ideas are strong and well presented. The effective contrast with Bloch’s From Jewish Life (1924) is dramatic. This is Jewish music par excellence, and its distinctive character, the voice of the cantor, resonates throughout the work. In Suite populaire espagnole by Manuel de Falla, we have another strong contrast with the other works. After the troubled voice of Bloch’s cantor, the sunny, invigorating music of Spain is dramatic. The six sections of the work run the gamut of the composer’s accessible style. Staying in Spain, Madrigal (1915) by Enrique Granados, has more in common with Bloch’s piece. Based on one of his songs, it is a passionately wrought aria for cello. It was also one of the last things he wrote before he drowned. Toward the end of Debussy’s life, the composer tried to re-establish a link back to classical French composition. One work exploring…

At first glance this disc of chamber music might appeal exclusively to film music buffs.