As a young virtuoso, Claudio Arrau was renowned for playing long programs and tackling technically challenging works like Albeniz’s Iberia. From mid-life onwards he concentrated on the German tradition and mainstream repertoire. He reached his full maturity in the mid-1950s, when most of the recordings in the EMI box were made. This set contains the five Beethoven concertos, a selection of sonatas, and concertos by Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Schumann, Chopin and Brahms. Arrau was never a mere technician. In a 1970s broadcast
 of Brahms’s Second Concerto, he swayed and grimaced like a
 soul in torment. That is both the upside and downside of these recordings: he approaches each forte as if it was Mount Everest, and handles lyrical themes as if officiating at High Mass. Take
 the limpid piano melody in the second movement of Grieg’s concerto: its innate simplicity eludes him as he inflects every note with emotional significance. In his desire to make the instrument resonate he overuses the sustaining pedal, which would have been effective in a vast auditorium but turns muddy in the studio. By contrast, Alceo Galliera and the Philharmonia, who accompany most of the concertos, are a model of clarity. Arrau’s Beethoven is fascinating. Often…

A student of Berio, Richter is
 a stylistic magpie whose music 
is accessible yet inventive and thought-provoking.

In an interview for the long defunct ABC Radio National program The Score (for which I was Producer at the time), Frans Brüggen said of Mozart symphonies: “There is no such thing as ‘interpretation’.” While this might at first sound a trifle odd, I think after all this time I can see what he meant. 
He wanted the composer to speak
 for himself. Brüggen established
 the Orchestra of the Eighteenth
 Century in a very specific
 manner. He recruited Europe’s
 leading specialists in historically 
informed performance practice 
to make his band. It is in fact a
 combination of expert practitioners
 who are also are researchers and avid collaborators. He wanted it to be (and it still is) a sort of permanent workshop, where 
the members are always working together and listening to each other in the search 
for authentic sonorities. The goal in all this pursuit of sound colours is to allow the music to reveal itself. Previous cycles of Beethoven symphonies have had as their star not the composer, but the conductor. Herbert von Karajan’s cycles especially come to mind of course (as good
 as they are, they are completely different in intent and certainly in effect). The Dutch critic……

An excellent monograph of one of our most prominent composers.

In 19th-century Poland, composers faced a real dilemma. The country had been partitioned by Russia, Prussia and Austria, super-powers with a vested interest in keeping nationalistic music firmly out of the public domain. That left
 you two options. The first was 
to become a composer-virtuoso (the path taken by Paderewski along the way to becoming Polish Prime Minister) so you might be able to export your music to an international audience. Juliusz Zarębski (1854-85), complete with flamboyant shock of hair, was one such showman, gaining a European reputation for his performances on a double keyboard piano. The other possibility was to stay at home and teach, the sedate choice of Władysław Żeleński (1837-1921). These two gentlemen of two roads diverg’d are the subjects of this fascinating disc from Hyperion. Zarębski’s Piano Quintet, a 40-minute work as rich in melody as it is strong on motivic development, was heard in Martha Argerich’s impassioned 2011 Lugano Festival release. The composer was clearly something of an innovator, employing bold tonal shifts and quirky rhythmic devices. The 
 Żeleński Piano Quartet is entirely new to CD but should make many friends on this showing: as tuneful as the Zarębski but with an added layer……

Strange as it may seem now, Prokofiev’s most famous ballet had a particularly painful birth. The Soviet director Adrian Piotrovsky suggested a ballet adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy to the composer in 1935, but the Bolshoi pronounced the finished work “undanceable”. The Kirov agreed to stage Romeo and Juliet (complete with happy ending!) but plans were rapidly shelved after the dramaturge
 was denounced in the Pravda article Balletic Falsehood. It was his libretto for Shostakovich’s ballet The Limpid Stream that 
had offended. Piotrovsky was arrested and shot the following year – a definite nadir for the arts in Stalin’s Russia. The revised version (now with acceptable tragic ending) didn’t see the light of day until 1940, when the Bolshoi turned out to be able to dance it after all. Since then it has conquered the world, danced by the likes of Fonteyn and Nureyev. The three suites are regular concert items. Sydney Symphony chief Vladimir Ashkenazy clearly identifies strongly with the work, having recorded it for Decca
 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra ten years ago. He rightly treats it as Prokofiev’s most elevated piece – sincere, emotional and unflagging in its inspiration. So how does the new CD stack up? On…

On the eve of its Sydney opening, Limelight catches up with the show’s award winning composer, Grant Olding. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

In his booklet notes to this most bewitching of releases, David Cranmer quotes from a 1787 journal entry by the English traveller William Beckford, in which he refers to modinhas, or Portuguese love songs: “This is an original sort of music different from any I ever heard, the most seducing, the most voluptuous imaginable, the best calculated to throw saints off their guard and to inspire profane deliriums.” Wow. Fans of Portuguese fado
 will find these songs, which effortlessly bridged the gap between the popular and the courtly, immediately attractive, languid and sensual. Just listen to a modinha such as Tempo que breve passaste (“So short a time you passed”) by Antonio da Silva Leite. Then there are those, such as the bright, cheeky Onde vas linda Negrinha (“Where are you going, pretty black girl”) by the same composer, alive with Afro- Brazilian rhythms. L’Avventura London director Zak Ozmo, who also plays Spanish and English guitars, has wisely broken up the songs and instrumental works with more “classical” fare with a Portuguese connection – keyboard pieces by Carlos de Seixas and Domenico Scarlatti. The performances by sopranos Sandra Medeiros and Joana Seeara, violone player Andrew Kerr and guitarists Taro Takeuchi…

The new issue reveals the results of our critical blind-testing of six of Australia’s top orchestras. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Sydney first and Tassie last in first ever blind-listening test of Australia’s orchestras. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Vincent Plush’s new orchestral work for the Canberra Symphony celebrates the vision of Walter Burley Griffin. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Kneehigh’s Brief Encounter and Sylvie Guillem in PUSH will headline at this year’s Festival. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in