Paul Ballam-Cross

Paul Ballam-Cross

Paul Ballam-Cross is a writer and classical guitarist. He holds a Bachelor of Music in Performance and a Doctor of Philosophy, majoring in Musicology. He loves collecting records and will happily spend hours researching everything from the Baroque to noise rock.


Articles by Paul Ballam-Cross

CD and Other Review

Review: Castello: Sonate Concertate in Stil Moderno, Libro Primo (Academy of Ancient Music/Egarr)

Richard Egarr, Director of the Academy of Ancient Music describes Viennese composer Castello’s music as “utterly boundless in its virtuosity, imagination and colour, and would take anything we could throw at it in performance.” Well, he’s right. Although Dario Castello isn’t terribly well known these days since almost no biographical information about him has survived, back in the early 17th century he was celebrated across Europe with reprint after reprint of his Sonate Concertate. Subtitled in Stil Moderno (in the modern style), these unusual pieces live up to their description by including rapid-fire wind passages and sections that change mood at the drop of a hat. It’s a bit CPE Bach-esque in that Castello seems to delight in confounding both listeners and players with unexpected twists and turns. Castello realised that this sort of thing meant that the pieces were tricky to play but wouldn’t have any of it, writing that although the sonatas “may appear difficult, their spirit will not be destroyed by playing them more than once…this will render them very easy.” Helpful advice! There’s a focus on the winds here, with wind instruments appearing in solo form across a solid three-quarters of the disc. The flashy writing…

May 19, 2017
CD and Other Review

Review: Bach: Violin Sonatas & Partitas (Kyung Wha Chung)

After a hand injury in 2005, Kyung Wha Chung stepped away from the concert platform and turned to teaching. More than a decade later, this is her triumphant return to recording. Although Chung had recorded Partita No 2 and Sonata No 3 back in 1975, this disc is the complete Bach Sonatas and Partitas. They’re the solo violin Everest, since the player is completely exposed, without the reassuring safety net of an accompanist. At the same time, Bach demands the player navigate a thicket of interlocking lines of music. Tricky! This is quite a different recording to most recent performances of these pieces. By now, there’s a fairly firmly ingrained tendency towards historically informed performances of Bach’s music, but here Chung neatly sidesteps the issue. It’s not that she ignores the HIP movement (on the contrary – tempos are fleet here, and vibrato is kept on the subtle side), but more that minor quibbles about stylistic approaches are exchanged for an intensely passionate performance. Chung describes this disc as a project that has been with her for 60 years, calling it “recording Unaccompanied Bach”, and it seems like those capital letters are important. This is a very personal reading of…

April 21, 2017
CD and Other Review

Review: Brahms: Piano Quartet No 1, Piano Quintet (Ironwood)

Although it’s tempting to think of period performance as consisting mainly of lutes and viols, the reality is far from that! This is a recording of Brahms’ Piano Quartet No 1 in G Minor and the Piano Quintet in F Minor as he would have heard it. The three string players use gut-strung instruments and Neal Peres Da Costa plays a replica of Brahms’ Streicher grand piano. Along with Ironwood’s extensive exploration of performance practice of the late 19th century, this all adds up to quite a different sound.   I have to admit that I find a significant number of Brahms recordings woefully heavy and ponderous. These recordings, however, are quite the opposite. I suspect that it’s Ironwood’s careful research into the performance of the music of Brahms and his contemporaries that gives these performances a lightness that’s refreshing. Most recordings that I’ve heard of the Piano Quintet tend to emphasise the power of many of the passages, but for once ensemble passages are not completely overpowering. The liner notes point out that one of the key elements of Brahms’ own performances was the avoidance of metronomic playing, calling it “free, very elastic and expansive”. Perhaps… Continue reading Get…

March 10, 2017
CD and Other Review

Review: Italian Lute Virtuosi (Jakob Lindberg)

Jakob Lindberg has well and truly earned his reputation as one of the top lute players in the world. In this fine recital, he performs the music of Francesco da Milano, Marco dall’Aquila and Alberto da Mantova. In its heyday, the lute was the instrument of the greatest composers in the same way the piano was the instrument of choice in later centuries. These three Italian Renaissance lutenists were regarded as some of the finest musicians of the age (for example, da Milano was apparently nicknamed “Il Divino” and described as being “superior to Orpheus and Apollo”!). Although this is music of dense, criss-crossing contrapuntal lines, which makes it sound knotty and complex, in fact these pieces are ever-tuneful. In the liner notes, Lindberg divides the pieces into three categories – fantasias/ricecars (where the composer writes freely whatever he feels like), intabulations (re-workings of music originally for voices), and dances. Adept combining of pieces from each category ensures that there’s never a dull moment and that the pieces are shown in their best light, with ricecars rubbing shoulders with vocal music by Josquin and Arcadelt. BIS certainly knows how to make the instrument sound good. There’s a subtle reverb to…

February 16, 2017
CD and Other Review

Review: Bach: Complete Sonatas and Partitas (Rachel Barton Pine)

For many people, Bach’s solo violin works are the most remarkable works he ever composed. Personally, I suspect the title could be narrowed down further to the Chaconne from the Partita No 2 in D Minor! In any case, the fact that a solitary string instrument must showcase Bach’s profound musical thinking while playing several lines of music simultaneously means that these pieces are an extraordinary challenge to perform, let alone perform well. Rachel Barton Pine has been playing the music of Bach for most of her life, first encountering his music in St. Paul’s Church in Chicago. She gave her first performance, aged four, of Bach in this church, and played Bach in orchestral format there as well. She writes that she keeps the acoustics of the church in mind wherever she plays Bach, so it’s appropriate that it’s in that very same location that this disc was recorded. Players tend to emphasise Bach’s music in one of two ways. They either accentuate the rigorous intellectual side, or the dance-like nature of many of these pieces. Pine splits the difference neatly and leans more to one side or the other depending on the piece. For example, she gives the…

January 12, 2017
CD and Other Review

Review: Lawes: Music for solo lyric viol (Richard Boothby)

The lyra viol is a 17th-century instrument that, like the viola d’amore, has resonating strings inside the body of the instrument. It’s played between the knees like the bass viol, but is a little smaller. In many ways, however, the lyra viol is most similar to the lute. Like the lute, the lyra viol has a significant solo repertoire, and its music is notated in tablature. Tablature notates the location of the notes for the player, but not what those notes are. Given that the lyra viol often uses completely different tunings, using tablature makes performing music where each string might be different from the norm considerably easier. Although he’s most well known for his music for viol consort, William Lawes wrote prolifically for the lyra viol. Richard Boothby here performs the entirety of the solo repertoire, most of which are dances – it’s a lushly warm performance of Almains, Sarabandes, and Corantos. Though Boothby’s playing is beautifully hypnotic, I’d have liked more bite to some of the faster dances. Lawes’ consort music is known for his startling use of dissonances and rhythmic shifts, which could have been exaggerated more. On this disc, these works can come across as timid,…

December 7, 2016
CD and Other Review

Review: Mozart: Piano Trios (Rautio Piano Trio)

This is the debut release from the Rautio Piano Trio, and it’s an assured debut indeed. They perform three of Mozart’s Piano Trios (he only managed to write six, more’s the pity), the Trio in B Flat K502, the Trio in E, K542, and the Trio in G, K564. Mozart wrote these trios over the course of several years, during which time he also wrote The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni. It might be me being tempted to hear things Mozart never intended, but I feel as though the breezily conversational writing of these trios is indebted to his operatic writing. There’s plenty of cheerful Mozartian melodic lines passing around the ensemble that can’t help but bring a smile to one’s face. These trios were composed specifically for Mozart himself to perform in Viennese concerts. Being well aware of the monetary potential in creating music that could sell, you can almost imagine Mozart composing with one eye on the audience as the movements unfold. The trios are filled with an almost palpable sense of delight in the way the music twists and turns. Pianist Jan Rautio performs here on a fortepiano that once belonged to Christopher Hogwood, and, like…

December 7, 2016
CD and Other Review

Review: Harmonische Freude (Austral Harmony)

This disc brings together an unlikely but convincing combination of instruments in a trio consisting of the organ, baroque oboe and baroque trumpet. The reasoning that Austral Harmony gives for this is rather interesting. A contemporary of Bach’s named Georg Friedrich Kauffmann apparently suggested in some of his chorale preludes that an oboe or “other agreeable instrument” (trumpet, in this case) could play alongside the organ so as to give the impression that an organ stop was being used. I rather like his amiably cheerful descriptions of his own pieces given in the liner notes: “the oboes have been used in such a way here, which should be announced as good news”. Good news indeed for fans of Baroque wind and brass! What you get is a recital focusing on the oboe and organ (with appearances from trumpeter Simon Desbruslais on a respectable six tracks) with music from JS Bach and his contemporaries. There’s actually significantly more by the “other” composers than there is by Bach, but they’re in a similar style, so if you like Bach, you’ll like the other composers here, too. I particularly enjoyed the Sonata o Oboe Solo col Basso by the magnificently named Gottfried August…

December 2, 2016
CD and Other Review

Review: CPE Bach: Solo Keyboard Music Volume 31

This disc is, rather remarkably, volume 31 in Miklós Spányi’s complete keyboard works of CPE Bach, so it’s safe to say he knows what he’s doing! This disc includes several sonatas from Bach’s 1778 collection Six Sonatas for Connoisseurs and Amateurs.  I have to admit a certain fondness for just how odd CPE Bach’s music is, with his sudden melodic shifts and startling key changes. Bach’s left-of-centre keyboard writing is best exemplified by the charmingly experimental Sonata No 5 in F, which begins by teasing the audience with two false starts (first in C Minor, then D Minor), before beginning properly in F Major. It begins with a noble phrase that sounds like a precursor to Haydn. Similarly, the sparse second movement and sprightly third bounce along with enthusiasm, walking the fine line of being appealing without being cloying. The clavichord is a surprisingly quiet instrument – I saw one played in a small hall once to no more than 20 people, and the instrument still required amplification. I think that the recording in this case is a little too detailed – although we get a wonderfully close-up sound of the instrument itself, most of the more expressive passages come…

November 10, 2016
CD and Other Review

Review: Fantasías (Rupert Boyd)

I suspect for many guitarists it’s tempting to stay within well-known repertoire. What a good thing we have performers like Rupert Boyd to perform the less commonly heard works! Although Boyd’s liner notes suggest the album is built around several Fantasias, it feels to me more like an album of whatever he wanted to record. I think this is a good thing – it’s all clearly repertoire that he’s passionate about. There’s plenty to delight listeners. An early highlight is Australian composer Phillip Houghton’s titanic God of the Northern Forest and evocative (but oddly titled) Kinkachoo, I Love You, where Boyd proves a fine match for the meticulously detailed colourings and shadings of Houghton’s dreamlike music. Other unusual pieces include Byron Yasui’s charming Fantasy on a Hawaiian Lullabye, as well as rare sightings like Luigi Legnani, represented by the flashy Fantasia, Op. 19. It’s terrific to see such a varied recital, though it’s sometimes a little jarring switching from one piece to the next. Moving from a John Dowland Renaissance Fantasia of 1610 to Leo Brouwer’s Bartók-esque Tres Apuntes (Three Sketches) was a head-scratcher, though both were performed with verve. A fine, well-recorded disc overall, with music to delight guitar newcomers…

October 13, 2016
CD and Other Review

Review: A Bassoon in Stockholm… (Donna Agrell)

I have to admit that I’ve got a soft spot for the bassoon. It’s not the most sensual of instruments, but it’s more than capable of stirring the listener’s emotions, or astonishing with flights of virtuosity. Although the cover of the disc oddly doesn’t mention her name at all, this is essentially a chamber recital from bassoonist Donna Agrell. Focusing on works written for 19th-century bassoonist Frans Preumayr, this recording includes chamber music from Swedish composers who don’t pop up all that often – Éduoard Du Puy, and Franz Berwald.   Last year I reviewed a live performance in which the players expressed concerns about the quality of Berwald’s music. Although it’s far from flabbergasting anyone, I would argue that one doesn’t need to hear masterworks all the time. No one cooks with Wagyu beef every day – sometimes all the heart desires is a trip to the local Bunnings’ sausage sizzle. Berwald’s music isn’t going to replace Haydn or Mozart, but it’s fun while it lasts. The two Berwald pieces on this disc (the Septet in B Flat and the Quartet in E Flat) are not without charm, but it’s in the Quintet in A Minor by Du Puy…

August 26, 2016