Chamber, Orchestral
CD and Other Review

Review: The Decca Sound – Mono Years (1944-1956)

Music lovers over 50 will recall the Ace of Clubs label: a series of reissues of mono recordings from the 1950s. They sold in Australia for $2.95, enticingly cheaper than full price stereo LPs at $5.95. The latest in a series of Decca Sound boxes, delving into the old Decca catalogue, brings back many of those recordings, encased in reproductions of the original sleeves and with bonus tracks to take each CD beyond 70 minutes. Decca’s Full Frequency Range sound quality was always a feature and is enhanced in the digital remastering, although violin sections are occasionally toppy. For instance, you have to listen through the harsh string sound of Elgar’s Introduction and Allegro to appreciate the bracing vitality of Anthony Collins’s performance. His Falstaff has no such caveat: it sounds great and is enthralling from beginning to end. Sadly there is too much here to cover in a short review. Conductors include stalwarts like Ansermet, Argenta, Boult, Martinon, Fistoulari, Erich Kleiber (beautifully unaffected in Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony), Van Beinum, and the earliest discs by Solti: a riveting Bartók Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta and a lively Haydn Symphony No 100. Unique and celebrated recordings abound: Britten’s Diversions with…

November 11, 2015
Chamber
CD and Other Review

Review: Joe Twist: Dancing With Somebody

A miniature EP by Joe Twist: three works about ‘dance’; only 23 minutes. As in most of Twist’s music, allusions to popular culture are abundant. Dancing With Somebody – a string quartet – celebrates the persona (with some musical quotations) of pop diva Whitney Houston. Twist sets rhythmic buoyancy against a dark struggle. A subversive structure plays out: patterns are set up, then disturbed (though not repeated!), all aided by first-rate playing from the Sydney-based Acacia Quartet. In I Dance Myself to Sleep, Twist looks to female characters from films such as Superman and Star Wars. Am I listening to contemporary music for the concert hall or cheap bar music? (I ask that with admiration: Twist squeezes a familiar genre into something weirdly beautiful). Pianist Sally Whitwell is a gorgeous co-conspirator in Twist’s ironic game. The crystalline sound of quartet and piano jars with the overly-sampled Gorilla, a film score. A couple on a weekend away meet an alluring woman and a ritualistic dance takes place. I imagined some sort of sacramental physical theatre but this has too much sampled music masquerading as live instruments. The fade-out at the end was too obvious for what was (so far) an exciting…

November 10, 2015