It started with three first years of the Queensland Conservatorium wanting an opportunity to play baroque music and, finding no platform for it in Brisbane, having that fantastical notion to make their own. Myself, Michael and Philip Poulton were just some eager kids, still in our teens, still making pub visits between classes and spending weekends watching movies and dancing in bars. We gathered some friends together, lured a harpsichordist out of the shadows with an ad seeking baroque enthusiasts, talked a professional into tutoring us gratis, and unceremoniously dubbed ourselves the “Brisbane Baroque Players”. By the following year we were holding regular rehearsals under the direction of QSO violinist Wayne Brennan (our ever-generous and brilliant Baroque guru). We’d travelled to Canada as a trio in June, studying with the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra at their summer institute. Their influence and support fed greatly into our motivation. Three months later, we’d got what we’d set out for: we took to the stage with a 12-piece ensemble of our own on September 30th, 2011 – gold coin entry, church venue, program all of our own choosing. The estimated audience of 120 attending our premiere was a success we had not predicted. We…

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Age cannot wither this old possum in an evening of razor sharp wit plus some classical music on the side. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Russian composer is ‘outed’ as bisexual by his former assistant. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

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British Wagner specialist is rumoured to be the name in the frame to rescue Opera Australia's Ring.

A mere century ago, Franz Schreker was mentioned in the same breath as Richard Strauss, Korngold and Berg as one of Europe’s most important opera composers. In 1938 the Nazis put paid to all that by condemning his work as “entartete” (meaning degenerate) and after the war his exotic, late Romantic style was hardly flavour of the month. Recent decades have proved kinder however, and this new CD joins a healthy catalogue of recorded works. For anyone used to the highly perfumed sexual psychodrama of Der Ferne Klang, this piece may come as a bit of a surprise. A late work, Der Schmied von Gent is set during the 16th-century Spanish occupation of Flanders and turns out to be a light-hearted folk opera. Our hero, Smee, is accused of overcharging the occupying forces and loses his business. To get it back he sells his soul to the devil and enjoys seven years of good fortune. After an act
 of kindness towards the Holy Family (who are in disguise, naturally), St Joseph grants him three wishes, enabling him to wriggle out of his enforced trip to Hell. Unable to enter Heaven either after his death, he sets up a pub outside……

It is hard to believe that the dynamic principal conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra has had a 50-year recording career (and ongoing). The bulk of Ashkenazy’s work in the studio has been for Decca, and this box dips into his extensive discography with the label. It begins with the Rachmaninov Second and Third Piano Concertos from the
early 1960s, when young Vladimir
 was still a Soviet Award-winner,
and concludes with his 2007 
recording of Beethoven’s Diabelli
 Variations. In between are many 
examples of his work as a pianist 
and conductor, although the
 selection is by no means complete. 
(What’s missing? Previn’s mellifluous Piano Concerto, and all the Stravinsky recordings.) As with most prolific recording artists, Ashkenazy has his detractors and is often taken for granted, but at the very least he is reliable. None of these performances strikes me as eccentric, wrong-headed or self- promoting; nor are they boring. At his best he has produced readings of works such as the Prokofiev and Rachmaninov concertos that have held their own in a competitive field for decades. The secret of his success is the music.
 He puts the composer first. You can hear that as early as the 1963 Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto…

Aboriginal poet Samuel Wagan Watson first became aware of segregation when, as a young boy standing on the “steamy Bjelke- Petersen plateau”, he saw the black and white smoke rising from Brisbane below – black from the blue-collar battlers in their fibros and white from the white-collar class with their European cars and “chez nouveau’’ fireplaces. The metaphor permeates the 23 short poems Smoke Encrypted Whispers, which won him the Book of the Year award and Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry in 2005. The beautifully crafted miniatures evoke childhood memories, fear of the dark, unforgettable descriptions of places like Tigerland and Boundary Street – named to mark the Brisbane curfew zone for Aborigines in his grandparents’ time – and visits from uncles 
who taught him traditional 
ways. Watson also gives some fascinating insights into his writing process as well as musing on visits to Berlin and a Maori marae in Wellington. Brevity is the source of wit for Watson, and also for Queensland- based Southern Cross Soloists
led by clarinetist Paul Dean,
who commissioned 23 Brisbane composers to write two-minute pieces to respond to the poems. The result is stunningly good. At the heart of this handsomely produced 80-minute album are five…

Finnish maestro Sakari Oramo 
is no stranger to the music of Elgar, having been at the helm
 of the City of Birmingham Symphony for ten years, where he played a leading role in the Elgar sesquicentenary celebrations in 2007. He was subsequently awarded the Elgar Medal in 2008 for his efforts as a non-British musician in advancing Elgar’s music. The Second Symphony 
is prefaced with a quote from Shelley: “Rarely, rarely, comest thou Spirit of Delight!” Oramo captures the ebullient mood of the “Spirit of Delight” which permeates the opening, but is also responsive to the darker, more troubled music in the haunting slow movement that emphasises “Rarely, rarely, comest thou”. BIS’s super-audio engineering shows the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic to be a well-oiled machine, the brass responding magnificently to Elgar’s many musical and technical challenges, especially in the opening movement and the brilliant Scherzo. The strings are well disciplined throughout, but could have been encouraged to even greater pathos in the slow movement. Oramo’s speeds are comparable to those set by Sir John Barbirolli in his 1964 recording, but there were occasional moments when I felt that Barbirolli was freer with the music and able to wring greater expressiveness and…

It’s the story of a lovely lady, who was bringing up just one boy on her own … Well, not really. The story of Rose Grainger and her precocious son Percy has more in common with Fifty Shades of Grey than The Brady Bunch. Abandoned by a drunken, syphilitic husband, the domineering mother home-schooled her son, introducing him to a wide range of literature, including the Nordic legends that influenced his music so deeply. By age 16, it appears that Percy had developed a taste for sadomasochism and as he grew
 up his mother did her best to stymie her son’s budding romantic relationships. The suggestion that she was incestuously involved with her son played tragically with her already fragile mental health and
 she jumped to her death out an office block window. It’s no surprise,
then, that Grainger 
remained obsessed
 with his mother for the
 rest of his life. The works recorded here (most for the first time) bear her imprint. Marching Song of Democracy is dedicated to her and celebrates their “adoration” of Walt Whitman, while Thanksgiving Song extols “womankind’s contribution to terrestrial immortality”. Scored for wordless chorus and large orchestra, these works reveal Grainger’s masterly orchestration and questing……