Although the German pianist Wilhelm Kempff had embarked on a celebrated concert and recording career by the late 1920s, his gifts would not be appreciated until after WWII and the dawn of the LP, recording for both Decca and Deutsche Gramophon, sticking to central Teutonic repertoire ranging from Bach and Beethoven (he recorded two celebrated cycles for DG) to Romantics like Schubert and Schumann. Kempff was a pianist who focused on the score at hand rather than presenting a more individualistic approach – as per many of his discographic contemporaries. These two generously filled discs focus on Brahms’ solo works, which show the influence of Schumann. Here are performances which sing, yet are content let his melancholic and darker edge shine through. These are straightforward interpretations in a selection presenting the finest of Brahms’ compositions for the keyboard – ranging from the early evocative Ballades Op. 10, wherein the mature Brahmsian style is already firmly in place. We get a pair of performances of the Two Rhapsodies Op. 79 and some of the late Intermezzi with their Romantic air of heartfelt anguish. It might be noted here that the Decca recordings were met with some critical reservation upon their initial……

Back in 2102, Austrian baritone Florian Boesch and pianist Malcolm Martineau gave us a searingly intense Winterreise. Hot on its heels comes Wilhelm Müller’s prequel, Die schöne Müllerin, and anyone expecting a gentle ramble beside a chattering brook had better look elsewhere. Once again, Boesch and Martineau demonstrate how deeply one can peer into dark waters with an interpretation that’s mercurial, febrile and ecstatic by turns. The setting off is full of jauntiness – this miller is determined to find romance, come what may. Boesch wields his light baritone to great effect, toying with words and notes. Martineau’s outburst into Halt!, is the first sign that all is not well – this young man is likely to crash and burn – and the way Boesch twists the phrase “the darling girl wishes everyone goodnight” in Am Feierabend (when clearly she is meant to except the miller from her farewells) proves it. It’s a true partnership as each takes turns to play the subtext, whether musical or literary. Listen to Martineau’s staggering left hand in Ungeduld against stabbing quavers in the right – I’ve never heard it so unhinged – the music says what the words hint at. In other places…

Goldner and Lane turn in fine performances and provide a refreshing change from the standard classics.

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Is this the best possible art I can make, right now? In the Education section on The Music Trust website, there is mentioned a German film called Rhythm Is It! This marvellous film documents a project hosted by the Berlin Philharmonic. It involves 250 kids mostly in their late teens, drawn from neighbourhood schools in Berlin. They are from every social class and many countries; a good number are refugees, “exiles” as they say. The orchestra, led by Simon Rattle, performs Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, and we are privileged to see moments from the rehearsals and to hear Simon Rattle talk about his life and art and this work. The kids learn to dance it. They learn to dance it, mostly beginning with no previous experience of dance or even of classical music. The project begins from zero, getting the kids into the room and quiet. (A choreographer speaks at one point of “the power of stillness”. Stillness does not come for weeks and, as she points out when it arrives, is transformative.) The man in charge, English choreographer Royston Maldoom, brings great authority. In a couple of sequences he tells of his own isolated and dangerous childhood and how, when he was…

As one of Les Six, Poulenc was acutely aware of modern trends. His mélodies (French Art Songs) set poets like Apollinaire, Éluard and Aragon; the voices of 20th-century French feeling. This charming collection reveals Poulenc as a master craftsman for the voice, affirming his position as heir to the French Art Song tradition, after Fauré and Debussy. His melodic lines are gracefully uncomplicated, and feature a delicate lyricism with a popular edge. Belgian soprano Sophie Karthäuser is the charismatic chanteuse whose voice fills this parlour of musical delights. Her performance pedigree is impressive: she has sung Classical and Baroque roles under conductors such as Chailly, Gardiner and Christie. Her voice is sumptuous on this disc, gliding effortlessly through Poulenc’s long, sensuous phrases with a casual elegance. It is never overdone, and features all the nuance and variation of colour required in a diverse set of songs. She inhabits the character of each poem, employing theatrical touches and vocal shading to convey the narrative of each. Poulenc’s music is quintessentially French, and embraces a more contemporary world than some. Works like Voyage à Paris are fit for the dreamy atmosphere of the cafés and salons of 20th-century Paris. Others have a…

In this thoughtful and measured recital, French pianist Bertrand Chamayou gives evocative accounts of a wide range of Schubert pieces. In the liner notes, Chamayou suggests that the album is “a kind of imaginary recital programme, along the lines of a concert that could have been heard in Vienna at the beginning of the Romantic period, in the cosy and intimate atmosphere of a salon… but which, for various historical reasons, could not have happened in this form”. While several other pianists have used the idea of a Schubertiade as inspiration for recital programming, the anachronistic inclusion of arrangements and transcriptions by Liszt and Richard Strauss make this a performance to remember, and prove that Chamayou has put a considerable amount of thought into this CD. At its heart is a strong performance of the Wanderer-Fantasie, a work that Chamayou infuses with a crucial sense of interconnection between the movements. It’s particularly important here, as the whole work is built on a motif taken from Schubert’s lied Der Wanderer, and that vital link is neatly highlighted. The other major works on the disc include the late Drei Klavierstücke D946, and the delightful 12 Ländler D790. The Klavierstücke were written within…

Zoltán Kodály’s reputation as a composer has usually taken a back seat to his ethnomusicology and pedagogical innovations, so although his music may lack the searching modernist abstraction of his colleague Bartók, it compensates with an authentic piquant flavour. These quartets are early works but Kodály’s character already comes through even in the first quartet where his Parisian training is obvious in the harmonic language – the melodic shapes and rhythms clearly hail from the Hungarian plain. It’s a lengthy work with weighty aspirations that doesn’t always convince but its Presto is a fun turn. The second quartet is a concise, pithy work with a more intense demeanour. Each of its three movements has a distinct flavour profile and pays off with an exciting finale full of stamping folk rhythms alternating with mysterious “night music” episodes; this is a work that should be programmed more often. Sandwiched between are two miniatures; an attractive Intermezzo for string trio and a quirky little Gavotte from 1952. The Dante Quartet play with warm devotion and a vehement intensity bolstered by technical security. Forget about national stereotypes; their bold attack and wide tonal palette allow them to sound “to the manner born” and there…

Italian period band Concerto Italiano continue their stylish survey of Vivaldi’s small yet perfectly formed string concertos with this second volume in Naïve’s monumental Vivaldi Edition. But has their normally iconoclastic director erred on the side of caution? In the booklet notes Alessandrini makes useful observations about these tiny concertos sans soloists, each of which lasts no more than four minutes. There are lots of them, but nobody knows what they were used for – though they claim kinship with Vivaldi’s operatic overtures. They take an idea and develop it through “predictable harmonic sequences”. They employ dance forms such as the gigue, fugal textures and “a certain carefree joy in the motor rhythms of long semiquaver passages”. As all are in four parts, their “chamber music idiom also lends itself to one instrument per part”. The music is wonderful, with Vivaldi showing his usual knack for getting the most out of a single idea, and Alessandrini’s sure direction moves it at a cracking pace with no loss of clarity. It’s only when you compare it with the far more colourful and exciting ones by Adrian Chandler and La Serenissima for Avie or Andrea Marcon and the Venice Baroque Orchestra for……

The opening chords to Mendelssohn’s Ruy Blas Overture are some of the most ominous in all Romantic music, and Riccardo Chailly gives them the works in this spirited new recording with the composer’s own orchestra from the Leipzig Gewandhaus. Great stuff, and the five selections from A Midsummer Night’s Dream that follow continue the take-no-prisoners approach. Chailly’s well known for his late-Romantic extravaganzas but it’s in this smaller, earlier Romantic repertoire that his natural flair and ability to expand musical ideas from within is best demonstrated. This is big, in-your-face Mendelssohn, with the scherzo less elfin and more goblin-esque than usual, while any couple using this lively reading of the Wedding March on their big day better be wearing track shoes to keep up. Mendelssohn’s Piano Concertos, featuring Saleem Ashkar are similarly meaty, the First starting off with such energy that it’s as if the music’s already built up a head of steam before the Record button was pressed. Ashkar gives it lots of razzle-dazzle, although some detail gets lost in the more intricate passages with the balance a little too much in favour of the super-charged orchestra. The Second Concerto isn’t so well known, but such is the full-blooded…

Thomas Tallis was destined, as the old Chinese curse puts it, to live in interesting times. Luckily, for him and for us, he defied fate and kept his head joined to the rest of his body through many of England’s religious troubles. Andrew Carwood and his expert singers have produced an engaging program of works that reflect both the liturgical and musical diversity of the period. At the centre of this disc is the imposing seven-voice Missa Puer natus est, which seems to have been written in the reign of Mary Tudor. While being based on the cantus firmus of the plainsong introit for Christmas, its lack of a high treble part and solo sections attest to the composer’s ability to adapt his craft to available forces (in this case, Philip II’s Chapel Royal). On the other side of the ecclesiastical ledger, we are given a sonorous setting for lower voices of the Benedictus (Blessed be the Lord God of Israel) to be sung at Mattins according to Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer. A Latin Magnificat (probably Tallis’s earliest surviving work) makes a fascinating contrast not only with the plainer English setting but with his later Catholic works. Two well…

It was a strange prospect to say the least; the whole of Debussy’s La mer (not to mention various Ravel orchestral works) on the organ. Even as an organist, I wondered whether there could be a transcriber, a player and an instrument to do due honour to such richly detailed and subtly orchestrated scores. Gunnar Idenstam, a Swedish concert organist and composer certainly gives it his best shot. The organ of St Martin’s, Dudelange, Luxembourg is an excellent choice with its synthesis of the best of the French, German and English schools of organbuilding. The spatial disposition of the four-manuals in the clear but reverberant acoustic allows the all-important sense of orchestral background and foreground to be recreated. Idenstam brings an excellent technique and a generous sense of drama to the task at hand. While the Debussy has many exciting moments, I couldn’t help feeling that in attempting to reflect the changing orchestration of the original somehow the transcription lacked cohesion and instead of a unified musical tableau I was listening to a succession of colourful moments. The shorter Ravel works fared better. Pavane pour une infante défunte is particularly effective and La valse along with two of the Valses…