Full of the festive spirit, and wondering what kind of entertainment will keep the children off my back over Christmas, I thought I’d take a swipe at one area of music which has been bugging me for years – the music in musicals. When a musical gets it right and the music is passionate and the dancing and singing and staging all work together, they can be a magical, joyful experience, but of late musicals have been a series of pastiche experiences. Pastiche comes from the Italian word pasticcio which is apparently a pâté or pie-filling mixed from diverse ingredients, and the theatrical equivalent is music that has all the dynamic texture of pâté and sounds like every other musical you’ve ever heard. I watched the musical Dirty Rotten Scoundrels recently in Sydney and while the acting and production were great, the music in the show was like some old 1950s generic score taken out of the freezer covered in frost and congealed fat, reheated in the microwave and served up as a new dish. As soon as a song begins you know exactly what is going to happen, every chord, every rhyme. You could even just start the song……

Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Tragédie en musique Castor et Pollux received merely a lukewarm reception when it was first performed at the Paris Opéra in 1737. However, its 1754 revision turned out to be a complete triumph. That’s the version Australia’s Pinchgut Opera presented in Sydney, December 2012, from which live performances this recording was assembled. One of Rameau’s most popular operas, containing music of exceptional quality and beauty, it’s surprising this was the first time the work had been performed in Australia in its entirety. Better 258 years later than never, I suppose. It is also of great comfort that this is such a fine interpretation. The story is straightforward. The immortal Pollux offers to marry his deceased mortal brother’s widow, Télaïre. She’d rather have her husband back, which request Jupiter agrees to grant providing Pollux takes his slain brother’s place in Hades. Castor’s filial love is too strong, however, and he insists on spending one day only with the grieving Télaïre. Impressed, Jupiter makes Castor immortal as well and both brothers are placed among the constellations as the heavenly twins. Conductor Antony Walker and harpsichord continuo player Erin Helyard are fully conversant with the style of the French Baroque, and…

I first encountered Matthias Goerne’s artistry 17 years ago with his first contribution to Hyperion’s landmark Schubert Edition; he opened with Lob der Tränen and one was bowled over by the sheer beauty of the voice with its velvet sheen and rich, dark colour. He was granted the honour of providing the edition’s Winterreise which was predictably excellent then jumped ship to Decca and for me the shine went off ever so slightly. His singing took on some mannerisms that started to pall with repetition; fussy micro-managed phrasing and a tendency to croon. Thankfully that turned out to be just a stage in his artistic development and with him signing to Harmonia Mundi for an 11 disc survey of Schubert Lieder those artifices have disappeared. We live at a time when there is an extraordinary array of fine singers tackling this repertoire, but this series is something quite special; the overwhelmingly moving Die Schöne Mullerin from 2009 with Christoph Eschenbach’s magisterial accompaniment is one of my desert island discs and the very definition of the word Innigkeit. This final instalment with its predominantly nocturnal imagery is on a similar plane with limpidly beautiful and subtle contributions by Helmut Deutsch and…

Brilliant pianists tend to be either jaw-dropping virtuosos or they are intensely musical. James Brawn, at 42 years of age, while having the chops at his disposal to negotiate the thundering octaves of Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz No 1 or Mussorgsky’s Great Gate at Kiev belongs in the second category. He is a musician first: you hear it in the clarity of line maintained throughout the extensive variations of Busoni’s monumental arrangement of the Chaconne from Bach’s Violin Partita No 2, the gentle cantabile of Liszt’s Consolation No 3, and the unaffected fluidity of the C Major Prelude from Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier. Brawn was born in England, but spent his early years in New Zealand and Australia, where he first studied piano. He has won many prizes. For a while he returned to Melbourne to teach at Scotch College but in 2010 moved back to the UK to resume his concert career – of which this and two discs of Beethoven sonatas are a product. The title “In Recital” reflects the judiciously chosen program; the disc does not seem to have been recorded live in concert. The centrepiece is the Mussorgsky, where Brawn takes a thoughtful approach. He is more…

Ambassador for his instrument pulls out all the stops to entertain the Sydney crowd. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Unsurprisingly, a nocturnal atmosphere pervades the works assembled here – lullabies old and new – but such is the variety of styles and timbres there is never any danger of monotony. Rather, these are like watercolours rendered in what artists call chromatic greys, with the occasional shower of prismatic hues shining out of the darkness. Earlier masters include Enescu, Stravinsky, Szymanowski, Sibelius and Ravel, whose exquisite Berceuse sur le nom de Gabriel Fauré opens the program. Of the modern masters, I particularly enjoy Brett Dean’s Berceuse, the violin’s higher register lending it a mysterious, ethereal quality, as well as Kate Moore’s inventive Broken Rosary, which evokes the stringing of beads – the title refers to a rosary belonging to Moore’s late grandmother, which she broke one day as a child. Other highlights include Peter Adriaansz’s quirky Palindromes Part 3, Kats-Chernin’s cute Lullaby for Nick, which was the first piece she ever wrote, age 7, but which she never wrote down until recently, Cor Fuhler’s 18 Spoonfulls – the music’s units relate to the small mouthfuls one must feed a child (!) – and the lullaby in the form of a passacaglia by Andrew Ford, Cradle Song. Anna McMichael and Tamara…

Two spectacular instrumental showcases that, despite their differences, find common ground.

In 1918 Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes were doing their best to cheer up a shell-shocked public so, rather than continue his assault on bourgeois sensibilities that had brought forth Le Sacre du Printemps, he commissioned Respighi to orchestrate a selection of Rossini’s piano pieces. La Boutique Fantasque premiered in London in 1919 and was an instant hit. Rossini’s bouncy tunes in Respighi’s Technicolor orchestration made the suite a regular feature of Classical Pops concerts of previous generations. Neschling and his superb Belgian orchestra offer perform the complete ballet with gusto as an orchestral showpiece laying bare usually blurred details of orchestration aided by an upfront and brightly lit recording. While prudently less high voltage than the old rip-roaring account of the suite by Arthur Fiedler on RCA Living Stereo (a guilty pleasure) it is an exciting romp in demonstration sound but lacks a certain balletic grace and flexibility. Impressioni Brasiliane was the product of a visit to Rio and is very much in Respighi’s pictorial style with snatches of Brazilian tunes. Opening with an evocative night piece and closing with a hip-swaying danza, its bizarre middle movement portrays a visit to a biomedical institute that held 80,000 snakes –…

Former chairman of Glyndebourne’s opera house and festival passes away at 80. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Up for auction, the manuscript has been described as the most important to be sold in the last decade. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

A 170 year old Mendelssohn manuscript, found in a private collection, to be auctioned next month. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Brisbane Lions help Queensland Ballet take Delibes’ classic into a whole new league. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in