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Bryan Fairfax has died

Sydney-born conductor who gave the UK premiere of Mahler’s third symphony passes at 83. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

January 12, 2014
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CD and Other Review

Review: Prokofiev, Stravinsky: Violin Concertos (Kopatchinskaja)

Patricia Kopatchinskaja is the latest phenomenon in the galaxy of young violinists who seem to excel at everything they undertake. Following up her Gramophone Bartók/Ligeti/Eötvös Recording of the Year, here come the Stravinsky and Prokofiev Second Concertos. Both were composed within five years of each other but could hardly be more different. Indeed, the Prokofiev inhabits a different universe from its playful neo-classical precursor. Kopatchinskaja states that the work indicates an exquisitely creative “re-ajustment” to Prokofiev’s return to the Soviet Union, an acceptance that “this is the sort of music you have to compose.” She captures the emotional ambiguity of the work perfectly: the uneasy stirring of the G minor opening and the subsequent lyricism tinged with bleakness, her tone impressively kaleidoscopic, alert to every emotional nuance (as are Jurowski and the LPO). The spiritual core is the central movement with its ‘raindrop’ accompaniment – a radiant, rhapsodic oasis, shot through with shards of intensity. The finale seems to tap into Kopatchinskaja’s Moldovan roots: earthy and uncomplicated on one level yet maintaining headlong relentlessness to the last. The Stravinsky is, by contrast, a hard nut to crack, stylistically and psychologically. It took the composer down a path alien to the Russia he’d abandoned,…

January 9, 2014
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CD and Other Review

Review: Berkeley: Complete Music for violin and piano (Paling, Teniswood-Harvey)

Lennox Berkeley has often been more of a biographical footnote than a well known composer. Highly regarded as a teacher (students include Richard Rodney Bennett and the recently passed John Tavener), his oeuvre includes symphonies, opera and chamber music. A collaborator of Britten, he was equally friendly with Ravel and Les Six and his output has a more international sound than many of his British contemporaries. Written between the 1930s and the 1950s, his works for violin and piano immediately strike one for their clarity of purpose. Here is chamber music that is both cultured and approachable. The English violinist Edwin Paling together with the Tasmanian- based pianist Arabella Teniswood- Harvey (the wife of Michael Kieran), proves to be an ideal musician for the task at hand. And here is a task that is both scholastic and musical, bringing together a previously unpublished first Violin Sonata as attractive as any of the other works in this program. Equally fine are the Introduction and Allegro composed for the underrated Israeli violinist Ivry Gitlis and the earlier second sonata written whilst Berkeley studied with Nadia Boulanger. Whilst it is not necessarily ground breaking in terms of invention, Berkeley’s chamber music for violin and piano is…

January 9, 2014
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CD and Other Review

Review: Gershwin: Take Two (Tedeschi)

Tedeschi’s new CD follows on from the success of his first recording, Gershwin and Me, and features the Rhapsody in Blue, the wonderful Preludes, arrangements from the Songbooks and Tedeschi’s own inspired take on Porgy and Bess. Elsewherere he’s joined by Australian jazz trumpeter James Morrison and vocalist Sarah McKenzie. With more arangements of Gershwin songs and pieces such as Promenade, Three-Quarter Blues and Impromptu in Two Keys, it’s a varied and attractive program. Gershwin’s music is able to effortlessly inhabit multiple worlds – blues, jazz, classical and so forth – while maintaining the highest standards of craftsmanship. Tedeschi by contrast is firmly of the classical world, while perfectly able to accommodate the rhythmic and harmonic nuances of Gershwin. This is evident right from the opening work, Promenade, which Tedeschi imbues with a jaunty insouciance; I also loved the sheer exuberance of Jazzbo Brown Blues and the expansiveness of I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise. If Morrison and McKenzie tend to steal the limelight when they appear, that’s more down to Tedeschi’s generosity as a collaborator. But it’s in the solo works that Tedeschi’s art is best savoured, and nowhere more so than in the solo version of Rhapsody in Blue. Here, Tedeschi, unencumbered by the orchestral accompaniment, really soars, An enjoyable…

January 9, 2014