Instrumental
CD and Other Review

Review: Flute Vox (Laura Chislett)

Laura Chislett’s Flute Vox was envisaged as a kind of sequel to her 1995 collaboration with pianist Stephanie McCallum, The Flute in Orbit. More than 20 years later, the pair have released a double CD exploring more recent works by the composers featured on their first album, as well as a selection of other works. The album is an eclectic mix of contemporary flute works, from the solid intensity of Edgard Varèse’s Density 21.5 – a venerable 80 years old this year – to Michael Smetanin’s spritely 2015 work for flutes and mixed media, Backbone. Toru Takemitsu’s Voice kicks off the first disc, the close, dry recording highlighting Chislett’s precise technique and making audible every nuance of breath, voice and air. While this allows the listener to hear every detail of Chislett’s playing, it also robs the work of some of its haunting mystery. Along with Varèse and Takemitsu, Iranian-American composer Reza Vali is the only other non-Australian composer on the recording, his Persian Suite (Folk Songs, Set No. 12E) contributing lyricism and spirited energy. The didgeridoo-like growls and percussive vocal attacks of Zadro’s Vox Box make… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a…

March 1, 2016
Instrumental
CD and Other Review

Review: Liszt: The Art of Remembering (Olivia Sham)

“The pianist imagines an old artist, one Franz Liszt, troubled by that spiritual sickness known as nostalgia. At the piano, he strikes up a waltz – Valse oubliée No 1 – but perturbed by his melancholic mood, the waltz trails off…” Thus begins Olivia Sham’s fantastic journey into the creative soul of Liszt à la Berlioz’s semi-autobiographical text for the Symphonie fantastique. The Australian-born Sham is currently based in London and has a special interest in 19th-century pianos and their music. She recently completed her PhD on Liszt performance practice at the Royal Academy of Music. Quoting directly from Berlioz and Liszt, her programme note imaginatively links works, from across Liszt’s lengthy career, which she performs on two silvery-toned Érards (1840 and 1845) and a modern Steinway model D. In a nod to the compositional procedures of both Berlioz and Liszt, Sham uses Liszt’s four Valses oubliées, played on the Steinway, as an idée fixe of sorts, to interrupt the aged Liszt’s reveries which take him back variously to the prodigious youth, the virtuoso “at the height of his prowess”, the iconoclast and the champion of new music. The… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe…

February 29, 2016