Our finest musicians from the University of Sydney’s Conservatorium of Music are in Italy for the first European Chamber Music Summer School. They are staging daily concerts in Verona, Mantova and Venice at prestigious venues like The Bibiena Theatre, Palazzo Te and La Pieta.  Our students report from Italy. This week has far exceeded my already high expectations. Working with Lella Cuberli has been brilliant. We spend about six wonderfully intense hours a day with Lella, rotating through technique and repertoire sessions. Working with her is informative, interesting and, most of all, motivating. However, I feel observing lessons is most valuable. Lella has such a wealth of knowledge, and the little pieces of singing gold she hands to us are invaluable. We all appreciate how generous she is with her time.  As mentioned in the last post, we were all very excited to step inside the ancient Arena di Verona to be spectators of Verdi’s Aida. To claim the prime stone seating, it was recommended that we arrive at least two hours earlier than the start time of 9pm. Can you believe the opera was scheduled to finish at 1:30am?! After a day of threatening thunderstorms, we had our umbrellas packed and our…

 The blog of Limelight‘s publisher Andrew Batt-Rawden – July 2014 I don’t know what it is like for every other composer in the world, but for me, every new work is a huge rush of endorphins, adrenaline… and then a bit of terror. I won’t lie, my ego swells when I’m asked to write a new work. It is an even bigger rush when the work is for a sizable ensemble. When there are a lot of performers in a work, every single dot on a manuscript page has a lot weight – and not just because there are multiple voices or instruments that are going to interpret it. The weight of that 2B lead on 80 gsm A4 is added to by the admin time to put those performers together, the marketing, the public liability insurance, the audience, the venue, and the concept of the event itself. This is my first time writing for choir. Sure, I’ve written for voice – works for the Song Company, solo works with performances by Jessica Aszodi, ensemble works for Halcyon, Orkest de Ereprijs… but never choir. Michelle Leonard heard the Song of the Virtues that Chris Mansell and I had written for the Song…

A finishing school for composers of orchestral music has existed for some time in Australia, and most of our renowned composers are alumni. For the past eight years, the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra has hosted it with financial support of Symphony Australia. I received my first book on orchestration (by Walter Piston for those taking notes) as a teenager, and was fascinated with the idea of manipulating the sonorities of an entire orchestra. That fascination has never left me (although the copy of the Piston has – if you have it, please return it). Last year I submitted a score for the TSO Composers’ School which was not accepted, but I did take up an invitation to spend a few days in Hobart as an observer. This 2013 experience taught me a great many valuable things, not least of which was an understanding of the criteria my music would have to meet to be accepted the following year. This could be called ‘the invisible brief’ and is a familiar enough idea to artists in all media. The score of my piece ‘Angelus’ was submitted in January and accepted. This made me extremely excited. Soon after my tutor for this event, the…

Our finest musicians from the University of Sydney’s Conservatorium of Music are in Italy for the first European Chamber Music Summer School.  They are staging daily concerts in Verona, Mantova and Venice at prestigious venues like The Bibiena Theatre, Palazzo Te and La Pieta.  Our students report from Italy. 2014 European Chamber Music School participants As I sit on the balcony watching a thunderstorm engulf the city, I am compelled to reflect on the beginning of what will prove to be a wonderful Italian experience. Back in March we auditioned for the inaugural Estivo chamber music festival. Myself, along with over forty other students were lucky enough to be selected. I was selected to perform pieces from the art song repertoire, by composers such as Tosti, Liszt and Massenet, as well as in a vocal quartet performing Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzes. After much preparation and many rehearsals, July 5th was upon us and we were due to fly to Verona. After a long flight (who knew Australia was so far away!) and bus from Milan, we arrived in Verona on a beautiful summer day. As one must do when arriving in Italy, we went looking for the nearest pizzeria, to get our fill…

Casper David Friedrich’s painting The Wanderer Above The Sea Of Mist has been trotted out for countless album covers, but for Austrian baritone Florian Boesch’s latest collaboration with Roger Vignoles it couldn’t be more appropriate. From the English pianist’s gloomy opening chords we almost feel the fog that enshrouds the mountains and valleys surveyed by the figure on his lonely crag. Boesch’s gentle, expressive baritone paints in the hopeless despair of a man who wanders “silent and joyless, and my sighs forever ask: Where?” That’s the Wanderer of D489, but this collection of 19 songs is not all Weltschmerz, although Boesch does resignation very well with his lovely sotto voce. In Aus Heliopolis II we hear a more assertive narrator and Auf der Bruck has singer and piano cantering along. Schubert is a competitive market at the moment. So why buy this one? Well, Boesch is a compelling singer. He already has Winterreise and Die Schöne Müllerin under his belt with accompanist Malcolm Martineau (who has recorded the same repertoire with Bryn Terfel), but he and pianist Vignoles have a great chemistry. This complements their previous outing of songs by the lesser-known Carl Loewe. Boesch’s lines are poetic and beautifully…

Bach’s Goldberg Variations has become a piece of cultural capital, used as a prop for intellectual pretensions, and with so many recordings available I must admit to a grumpy scowl as I loaded this disc into my player. Here we go again, another pianist thinks the world needs to hear his thoughts on this venerable masterpiece, this had better be good. Press play and the Aria is elegant and straightforward, Var I is crisp and playful – good so far. As the disc went on a smile spread from ear to ear – this is rather special, you know. Denk’s limpid tone and judicious pedalling maintains clarity while his architectural grasp integrates each variation into a grand plan while characterising each with a specific mood and attitude. He sees patterns where others merely see notes. Voices move forward and back by way of subtle lighting effects rather than glaring follow-spots; the descending chromatic bass at the beginning of Var XXI is tinted with a darker baritonal colour on the repeat – classy! The fughetta of Var X is stern but not hectoring; indeed Denk never makes an ugly sound and doesn’t peck. There are sensual delights such as his gleaming touch…

The third volume of Paul and Huw Watkins’ survey of British cello music turns to sonatas written after 1945 by Edmund Rubbra, Alan Rawsthorne, and EJ Moeran. All three are works that haven’t entered mainstream repertoire, but this CD makes a compelling argument that they should. Rubbra’s Sonata in G Minor shows his preoccupation with counterpoint and the music of the 16th century, even extending to authoring a short but fascinating book entitled Counterpoint – A Survey (now, disappointingly, out of print). Cello and piano work together in a way that’s reminiscent of the Renaissance masters of polyphony, but with a piquant 20th-century touch. By contrast, Rawsthorne’s work is highly chromatic and passionate, with moments of crystalline delicacy as well as shattering power. Similarly, Moeran’s Sonata is a stirring piece, sounding at times like a more chromatically dense Brahms. There are hints at his interest in folk music, particularly in the dark and roiling first movement. All three works are finely played and recorded but I have reservations about programming. Rawsthorne and Moeran back-to-back results in a solid 35 minutes of similar weight; both Rubbra and Moeran wrote short works that could have been added to cleanse the palate. A…

Maurizio Pollini’s two previous recordings of Brahms’ Second Piano Concerto, both conducted by Abbado, are the stuff of legend – the 1995 live recording in particular often being regarded as simply the greatest ever made of this strangely-structured but ultimately deeply revealing insight into the composer’s complex psychology. So why record it yet again? Well, because Pollini’s towering musical genius (and yes, that description is offered by way of sober assessment) just grows and grows with time. Indeed, nearly 20 years is too long to wait for this, his latest State-of-the-Musical-Union address on what makes this four-movement work in B Flat such a compelling experience, even when it doesn’t quite have the bravura or colour-and-movement of its D Minor predecessor. And again, Pollini, now in his 70s, delivers with everything we’ve come to expect from him – the poetry most of all, especially as the piano enters after the famous cello melody at the start of the slow movement. Then there’s the humanity of it – you can tell just from the sound that there is a great, compassionate spirit animating it. And of course, for all the magnificence of Pollini’s playing, it still sounds simply like a direct line…

I’ve always thought Khachaturian’s ballet music superior to his concertos. Even James Ehnes’ customary fusion of virtuosity and insight cannot convince me otherwise. Despite the contribution David Oistrakh made to its composition, if I had to sum up the Violin Concerto in one word, I’m afraid it would be “racketty”. Even the “exotic” arabesques, which must have seemed original in the 1930s were much better when used by composers like Dmitri Tiomkin and Miklós Rózsa in 1950s “sword and sandal” epics. Ehnes ennobles virtually every piece of music he performs but I think his prodigious talent is wasted on this work. The rest of the disc contains string quartets performed by Ehnes’ eponymous quartet, a curious juxtaposition because, while the Khachaturian has never really entered the “canon” of great violin concertos, it certainly does have audience appeal. Shostakovich’s Eighth String Quartet is his only work in this genre to have gained permanent status in the repertoire, but it’s still a hard nut to crack for the uninitiated listener. It’s a work of emotional extremes, although the very opening is played here with a warmth I’ve never heard before. The second movement is demented (even by Shostakovich’s standards) but these wonderful……

David Robertson’s interpretation of Stravinsky's ballet is a fine one in conception if compromised in execution.

Canadian baritone Gerald Finley teams up with one of today’s finest accompanists.

Tiberghien captures the quicksilver transience of Szymanowski.