National Indigenous Opera Company comes to Melbourne to nurture young Indigenous singers. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

I’m beginning to think that Mahler’s First Symphony is conductor-proof. Almost every version I’ve heard lately has merit and Marin Alsop’s with the Baltimore Symphony is no exception, despite an overall restraint. The opening of the first movement, surely one of the most magical of any symphony, is very slow until the explosion in the coda. In fact, the first three movements are all slightly slower than usual, whereas the final one is slightly swifter. Perhaps the second Scherzo/Ländler movement lacks the last ounce of what Germans call schwung – bounce or swing – but the central section doesn’t sound too inebriated, as it sometime can. I wondered whether or not it was just me who thought that the third-movement funeral march (Frère Jacques in a minor key) seemed to have been recorded at a higher level than the rest, and I’ve since discovered another review which garnered the same reaction. Another unwelcome development is the double bass melody, which forms the backbone of the movement, being played by the entire section, not a solo. The same reviewer who noticed the disparate recording levels also points out, helpfully, that the Jewish klezmer music in the trio is conducted with what……

The excellent British outfit The Nash Ensemble have released an important and superbly recorded new album of works by four Jewish Czech composers – Pavel Haas, Viktor Ullman, Hans Krása and Gideon Klein – who were all killed in Nazi concentration camps. They were part of the rich cultural life of the Theresienstadt ghetto, an old garrison from the Hapsburg Empire created as a way station for Jews being sent on to the death camps. Although the listener will be appalled by what happened to these four Czechs, all of whom were sent on to Auschwitz on the same transport, the music itself is curiously free of the poignancy and despair of their situation.
 As Ullman said of that time: “Theresienstadt has served to enhance, not impede, my musical activities, that by no means did we sit weeping by the waters of Babylon and our will to create was equal to our will to survive.” Krása’s suite from his delightful children’s opera Brundibar (Bumblebee) is given its first performance here in David Matthews’ version for string quartet, piano, flute, clarinet, trumpet and percussion. Its mood varies between the magic of Ravel and sparkling humour of Poulenc. Ullman studied with Schoenberg……

When a film boasts a morbidly obese albino and a Swiss alpenhorn, you know you’re not in for an ordinary trip to the cinema.

Ravel is often described as an Impressionist. While this is an erroneous label overall, he is at his most impressionistic in the piano cycles Miroirs and Gaspard de la nuit. There are two schools of Ravel pianists: those who create a dreamy, soft-centred sound picture (usually old-school, like Walter Gieseking) and those who seek
out the sharp edges and go for clarity like Alexandre Tharaud. The young Russian Anna Vinnitskaya amalgamates both worlds. In her reading of Une barque sur 
l’océan from Miroirs, the opening arpeggios have a chiseled quality – no blurry wash here – yet her subtle way of emphasising single notes in the right hand suggests sparkles 
of sunlight on the water. Similarly in Noctuelles, Ravel’s depiction of moths at night, Vinnitskaya vividly plots the haphazard flight of these nocturnal creatures. She is less successful at evoking humans. Her Alborada del grazioso is too brisk to capture the braggadocio character of the serenade. It is highly impressive as pianism, as is her Scarbo from Gaspard de la nuit, but the latter reading underplays the piece’s unique grotesquerie. On the basis of her nuanced performance of the Pavane, I rather wish she had ditched Gaspard and recorded Le Tombeau…

The salons of 19th-century Vienna come dancing back to life in this collection of vocal duets, trios
 and quartets, written for the famous Schubertiades, many of which, while he lived, boasted the composer himself at the piano. Lovers of the dark, complex Schubert of Winterreise will look in vain for him here; this is, for the most part, light and undemanding fare, meant more to entertain than to penetrate the soul. A sprightly vocal quartet enters heartily into the spirit of the thing, sympathetically balanced voices separately and together. Marlis Petersen’s glistening soprano sits sweetly atop the ensemble, while Anke Vondung sings with a soulful glow which keeps her sometimes sugary music from cloying: the strophic, sentimental Die Unterscheidung is a notable example. Tenor Werner Güra can’t quite match the ladies for beauty of tone, but his forthright, if slightly grainy tone blends touchingly with Vondung’s in Licht und Liebe, the lilting duet from which the album takes its title, and both he and bass Konrad Jarnot make colourful turns in the amorous wranglings of Der Hochzeitsbraten, a comic, almost Mozartian scene which also features a delightfully soubrettish Petersen as the love interest. The disc concludes with a series of…

If Jonas Kaufmann is your idea of the perfect heldentenor,
voice then Klaus Florian Vogt’s preternaturally light instrument might not be your cup of tea. Nevertheless, the other German Wagner tenor du jour has built quite a following and this is his second solo album for Sony. He includes several items also on Kaufmann’s current disc,
so a comparison is apt. Sadly it seems that Vogt holds none of the winning cards. Listen, for example, to Siegmund’s sword monologue: next to Kaufmann’s heroic tone and attention to text, Vogt’s is a pale, thin sound with little interpretive detail. His cries of “Wälse” are weak, and over in half the time of his rival’s. More lyrical items fare little better. Rienzi’s rushed prayer has awkward multiple breaths and little sense of line. The top notes are all there but delivered at low voltage and strained when required to be above forte. His Meistersinger sounds best but the tone is more that of a David than a Walther. Parsifal finds Vogt in better voice and he has some fine moments, but Tristan is a role that simply doesn’t suit him. Vogt is partnered by the excellent Jonathan Nott and his Bamberg Symphony. These are…

Soprano, who famously sang the Queen of the Night on horseback, receives the Order of Australia. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

First place in the 14th International Piano Competition goes to 26-year-old Ukrainian Vadym Kholodenko Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Four double passes to be won for August screenings of first ever ballet filmed in 3D.

Pianist Sergio Tiempo was championed from childhood by Martha Argerich; now 41 years old, he’s still every bit the fresh-faced wunderkind.

Adelaide Festival Centre’s 40th birthday and 2013 Cabaret Festival celebrate showbiz style with a glittering gala of sequins and song. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in