Why we need to be vigilantly aware of the implications of short-sighted cuts to investment in the arts.

In our latest magazine, ten leading brains decide who and what changed the course of music history. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Yuja Wang’s ability to colour her playing at speed is like nothing we’ve heard since Martha Argerich

A highly detailed and sympathetically recorded account with astonishingly brilliant orchestral playing.

ACO's latest Finnish recruit gets off to a stimulating start.

Shelton Murray will accompany the Australian Chamber Orchestra on their American tour this month. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

A Valentine's Day tribute to the women and men who inspired the great composers.

A historic agreement between two cities will create a more vibrant Chinese art scene in the South Australian city. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Richard Chandler of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra has passed away after being struck by an oncoming train. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Shostakovich’s cello concertos, both written for legendary cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, swing from smouldering slow movements to flashes of manic, frenetic activity. This new recording from Erato pairs French cellist Gautier Capuçon with Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra in a recording that highlights the exquisite details of Shostakovich’s cello writing, taken from concerts in 2013 and 2014 in Paris and St Petersburg. This is Capuçon’s second recording with Gergiev and Mariinsky, having previously released a CD of Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev in 2010. Capuçon hits the spiky five-note motif that opens the First Concerto with restrained intensity. This personal motif, based on the initials of the composer’s name (DSCH), is repeated aggressively in various guises throughout the first movement, returning in the finale to give the concerto a cyclical framework. Capuçon’s tone in the Allegretto is liquid and velvet, but full of depth and crunch as he leans into the low double-stops. The Mariinsky’s strings are lushly dissonant as they introduce the second movement, Gergiev shaping them into flowing arcs before the creeping cello line enters. Capuçon’s glissandi sigh, his sound rich in the lower registers and smooth… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a…

Ashkenazy and Ohlsson’s Emperor strikes in back-to-back Beethoven. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Editor’s Choice, Jan/Feb 2016 – Orchestral Nearly 30 years ago Simon Rattle recorded a cycle of the Sibelius symphonies in Birmingham and despite the adulation of some critics the set left others cold with their infuriating undercutting of brilliant insight with arch mannerisms. His textural clarity and bold delineation of dynamics that served him so well for Stravinsky was evident, but his tendency to prod and poke at phrasing and rhythms tended to pull the rug from under Sibelius’s carefully prepared climaxes. His latest readings bear similar traits, and while that implies a consistent point of view, he hasn’t yet convinced me, despite the glorious playing. Rehearing earlier accounts from Karajan, Kamu or Levine reminds one how different today’s Philharmoniker sounds from that of old; gone is the luxuriant plush sound with laser-like focus and bottomless reserves of tone. In its place is a lean transparency and limpid beauty of sound, but still with plenty of weight and malleable sonority. Sample the opening of the Third Symphony. It’s as cool and transparent as melt-water while the moments of hush have remarkable focus at a barely perceptible dynamic. Or… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already…