This release is a sequel to the earlier Decca Sound box set. It covers the years of Decca’s analogue “Full Frequency Range Recording”, starting with the company’s earliest stereo recordings from 1954 –Ansermet conducting the Suisse Romande Orchestra in music by Rimsky-Korsakov, Glazunov, Balakirev and Liadov – and finishing in 1980 just prior to the advent of digital recording, with Dutoit conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra in tone poems by Saint-Saëns. The bonus CD gives us the Ansermet Russian program in its original mono, for comparative purposes. Unlike the earlier box, this is not presented as a best performance collection; rather, it is designed to showcase the peak of Decca’s sound quality over those analogue decades. And indeed it does: the sound of Fistoulari’s highlights from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake holds up stunningly (recorded with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1961), not to mention Solti’s visceral Mahler Resurrection Symphony with Heather Harper, Helen Watts and the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus from 1966. Sometimes the sound is of its time. When Decca producers recorded opera in the late 1950s and early 1960s they preferred a cavernous space with the voices set back  – an opera house acoustic – yet the clarity and presence…

Dawn Upshaw tours with the ACO after their triple grammy whammy.

This live performance was given in the Royal Festival Hall, London, in February 2011. The London Philharmonic has a proud Mahler tradition – they were Tennstedt’s orchestra in the 1980s – and they have released some excellent Mahler performances recently on their house label (notably Jurowski’s readings of Symphonies 1 and 2). This is another. Nézet-Séguin’s pacing of this work (with one arguable exception) is pretty much perfect. How neatly he places the explosive transition into the veritable circus march at the point in Von der Schönheit where the poem depicts a galloping steed plunging through the countryside. The all-important closing section of Der Abschied is well done too: not drawn out interminably but allowed to wind down to its last fading sixth chord in a truly affecting manner. The orchestra plays with great precision and expression throughout. The soloists are also very good. Toby Spence (to my surprise) reveals himself to have the burnished heldentenor voice required for his first and third songs, with a ringing top but also plenty of strength in the middle register. He knows what he is singing about, finding the undercurrent of desperation (just as Sarah Connolly beautifully expresses the melancholy at the heart……

This is one of a number of new releases commemorating the 50th anniversary of Paul Hindemith’s death. His three Piano Sonatas were all written in the same year, 1936, after he’d fled the Nazis. (Hindemith wasn’t Jewish – the Nazis just hated his music.) The sonatas, while clearly from the same pen, have distinct profiles: the dramatic First has an improvisatory feel, the Second is lighter and the Third the most formally disciplined, with a Bach influence in its fugal finale. The booklet note states: “Hindemith… viewed the piano as providing a… neutral tone colouring through which the movement and intertwining of tones, themes and lines could be contemplated”. That may not be the whole story, but it seems to be how Markus Becker views this music. While far from being neutral in expression, his approach is thoughtful and balanced. Becker has a great many pluses: He brings coherence to the First Sonata, and the Third’s Sehr lebhaft movement positively flows (fluency in Hindemith – as opposed to, say, Chopin – does not come automatically. It requires hard work.) But for all his finesse there is one crucial aspect missing here: an underlying wildness that places Hindemith fairly and squarely…

This issue serves to remind us what a gifted and supremely intelligent pianist we have in Roger Woodward. The program (lasting over 81 minutes) comes from a live concert recorded in 2007 in Bremen – a town notable for fine musicians. It encompasses Bach, Chopin and Debussy. For each of these three very different composers Woodward adopts a rigorously appropriate touch and approach. There is a current tendency to go for clarity in Debussy, from fine pianists such as Zimerman and Thibaudet, but Woodward tends towards the evocative approach of Walter Gieseking (without Gieseking’s occasional wrong notes). From the gossamer opening of Brouillards (Mists) to the random bursts of colour in the concluding Feux d’artifice (Fireworks), he creates specific tone pictures. Woodward’s playing of the first three Chopin Mazurkas underlines the music’s origins in dance. Rubato is expertly and subtly applied. Finally, he brings authority to the Bach, employing the attributes of the piano, such as the sustaining pedal, but remaining clear as a bell in emphasising the polyphonic strands. He also utilizes expressive devices of the Baroque era that older Bach pianists like Fischer and even Gould tended to avoid. Only in the Sarabande do I find this slightly…

Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt has played the music of Gabriel Fauré all her life. As she admits in her notes, he is an elusive composer. Aspects of Schumann surface in his early Nocturnes, their accompaniments containing tricky cross-rhythms, yet the Valse Caprice No 1, Op 30 has all the surface sparkle of Saint-Saëns. Fauré is too subtly complex to be regarded as a mere salon composer, although for years that is how pianists thought of him. Hewitt is aware of the contradictory sides composer, and does not restrain herself in terms of sheer power of attack when necessary. The central part of her program consists of three Nocturnes. No 6 in D Flat is the best known, a waltz with a seemingly simple (but harmonically unpredictable) opening melody supported by rippling arpeggios. No 13, from 1921, pares back all superfluous decoration to reveal the composer’s final thoughts for his favourite instrument (like Beethoven, Fauré went deaf in old age). Hewitt’s phrasing, dynamic variations and strength serve the composer well. Her recital closes with the early Ballade (later scored by the composer for piano and orchestra). Here I felt her to be too heavy-handed. The dry, light touch of Jean-Philippe Collard…

Early music royalty rock the recital hall to bring the first week of Sydney Festival’s classical program to a rousing conclusion.

Here are two exceptional reissues. The Brahms consists of 1980s recordings featuring András Schiff with the Takács Quartet in the F Minor Piano Quintet, and with Viennese colleagues in the Horn and Clarinet Trios. VPO principal clarinetist Peter Schmidl is heard in the Clarinet Quintet. If that weren’t enough, Schiff plays the four-hand Variations on a Theme of Schumann, joined by no less a partner than Georg Solti. This fine collection covers works from all periods of Brahms’s life, but is especially recommendable for the autumnal late works. An interesting comparison may be made with the heart-on-sleeve Clarinet Quintet played by a Viennese ensemble of an earlier era, in the massive but treasurable Westminster Chamber Music collection. Fascinating generational differences. The ASMF disc restores Argo recordings from 1968 when Neville Marriner still played violin with the ensemble. Boccherini’s late quintet (one of over a hundred of the composer’s works in this form) is typically gentle and mellifluous, while Mendelssohn’s Octet is a recognised masterpiece. Both are very well played, though I think the Academy’s English good manners suit Boccherini better.

Max Raabe and his Palast Orchestra have been cult artists for several years. Their work has appeared on German labels, along with a terrific Kurt Weill album conducted by HK Gruber for RCA in 2001. Now Raabe and his authentic 1930s band have signed with Universal. Their mission is to resurrect what Ian Wekwerth’s notes call the ‘shellac’ sound of crooners of the Rudy Vallee and Bing Crosby vintage. Hence, band arrangements feature oily saxophones and jazzy brass fills, plus a more present drum sound than we used to get on old 78s. Raabe himself is unique. His voice is at the same time resonant, with a wide range, and nasal. His ever so slightly Germanic pronunciation lends an air of high camp to the proceedings. This is also born out in his choice of repertoire. While legitimate hits of the 1920s and 30s are included, such as Singin’ in the Rain and Brecht and Weill’s Alabama Song – both of which he performs with authentic charm – there are also point numbers like Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf and Cosi Cosa from the Marx Brothers film A Night at the Opera.   As a bonus we get Raabe’s hilariously po-faced 30s rendition of Britney Spears’ Oops, I Did It Again, but in a shorter form than the older version where he reproduced the dialogue. (Don’t ask how I know…) Some fun originals and vivid sound add to the…

Following on from last year’s 1960s box, here are Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic’s recordings for the yellow label from the 1970s, minus the operas. By this time Karajan was the dominating force behind the Salzburg Easter Festival and a towering figure in Austro-German musical circles. He was even more prolific as a recording artist than during the preceding decade. Like the 60s box this set boasts 82 discs, but Karajan also returned to EMI at this time to record with other orchestras as well as his Berliners.   He enjoyed the freedom to rerecord some of his core repertoire, namely the Beethoven and Brahms symphonies, Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. The Beethovens, especially Nos 3, 6 and 7, are broader than their 1960s counterparts: stirring performances, but beginning to exhibit the glacial grandeur that the conductor was later accused of overdoing. The historically informed movement had not yet reached Beethoven, but it had reached Bach. Karajan continued to program Bach, Vivaldi and other Baroque masters, and his modern instrument readings sound leaner than might be expected (notably his 1978 set of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, though not his B Minor Mass or St Matthew Passion)….

Ashkenazy masters massed forces of SSO and Philharmonia Choirs in eloquent prayer for peace. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

This collection of legendary recordings provides an outlet for nostalgia among older music lovers and a rich opportunity for younger ones.