Welsh Singer parts from her record label amidst claims that she was pushed after unreasonable demands.

South Australia has been spoiled at this year’s Come Out Festival, and it’s not just the kids who’ve had all the fun. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Marie Bashir gives Peter Bassett’s Ring Cycle lectures on Decca Eloquence the Royal seal of approval.

Anyone passionate about Wagner’s Ring Cycle knows that every generation has its own prospective dream team.

Joaquin Turina took on the advice as well as the example of his older compatriots Albeníz and Falla, and wrote works influenced by the fiery gypsy music of Andalusia. His output consists mainly of piano music, songs, chamber music and a handful of dazzling orchestral works which show him to be second only to Ravel in orchestral wizardry. In all the music on this well-filled disc you will hear a style of Impressionism that is not cool and misty but ablaze with heat and light. The BBC Philharmonic relish Turina’s textures under Mena’s idiomatic direction, and typically rich Chandos sound is everything one could wish. This is well worth collecting alongside Mena’s previous discs of music by Falla and Montsalvatge. If I have a quibble, perhaps a degree of earthiness is missing in these lush performances. In the Danzas Fantásticas some of Mena’s predecessors point more clearly to the gypsy origins. Try the
old Ansermet/Suisse Romande recording on Eloquence to hear what I mean. Clara Mouritz’s vibrant mezzo- soprano voice is perfect for the heartfelt Saeta, but I feel the five Poema en forma de canciones lie too high for her. A true soprano is needed, the likes of Los Angeles,…

Just as flamenco guitarists Paco Peña and Paco di Lucía have stretched the boundaries of what constitutes flamenco, so too does Barcelona-born José Luis Montón draw on “new characters in the alphabet of flamenco” in his inspired, impassioned creations, while introducing a few of his own. As Montón writes in his brief booklet note: “In this music I have tried to translate all the sincerity and love of art that I appreciate so much when I encounter it.” Thus most of the pieces start
from a traditional base – bulería, tango, soleá, seguirilla and so forth – before pushing off from the shore in search of new horizons. Works such as the opening Rota (farruca) and the percussive Al oído (cantiñas) combine sweetly ornamented melodies with flurries of punteado and machine-gun bursts of rasgueado, while rhythms and harmonies take unexpected twists and turns. One of the biggest, and most enjoyable, of those twists is Montón’s beautiful, flamenco- inflected arrangement of JS Bach’s Air from the Orchestral Suite No 3 in D. Here, as in many other pieces on this recording, the main melody sneaks up on you amid a fresh, lyrical introduction. Other highlights include the intense Altolaguirre (tango), the exciting……

One feels that it’s very much the pianist’s hand on the throttle of Weber’s ghost train, plunging ahead one moment, the next, pulling back.

She’s playing the Elgar Cello Concerto with the husband of the woman who made the greatest-ever recording of it; she’s already won a “Genius” award from the MacArthur Foundation, and she’s got Decca hailing her as its first solo cellist signing in more than three decades. Lots of hype to live up to there, and Alisa Weilerstein seems on a hiding-to-nothing when the inevitable comparisons are made with Jacqueline duPré. What
the conspicuously intelligent American has going for her is a prodigious talent that’s been
recognised ever since she made
her concert debut with Cleveland
Orchestra nearly two decades ago.
That, and a commercial point-of-difference
in programming, with the immortal Elgar coupled implausibly with Elliott Carter’s Cello Concerto, and then the bitter pill’s sugar- coating of Bruch’s Kol Nidrei. But Weilerstein is known for her interest
in contemporary music, and Carter’s Cello Concerto, filled with slap-pizzicato and spiky orchestral explosions, is one of the few works by the American composer’s-composer that has crossed over successfully into the popular concert hall. And strange as it may sound given the beloved warhorse company that it keeps, this boots-and-all recording of it is the highlight of an impressive CD which leaves the brain stimulated but the emotions strangely unengaged. In…

The mezzo soprano finds herself on top for once as she goes back to basics with an original instrument Norma. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

German Chancellor figures out what to give to the man who has everything (and, of course, nothing). Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The 18th century symphony in Holland? It was up there with London, Vienna and Mannheim. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The Rolls Royce of string quartets say farewell to our shores with grace, elegance and more than a hint of nostalgia.