‘Tis the season to swing, and I can’t imagine a more irresistible album to set Christmas in motion this year: the 1892 orchestral Nutcracker Suite we know and love, alongside Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s big-band answer to Tchaikovsky from 1960. Far from a slapdash attempt to jazz up the classics this arrangement is testament to Ellington’s particular genius (and the inventiveness of his conservatorium-trained assistant Strayhorn, who deserves his equal billing). It’s heard here not only in the first recording since the Duke’s orchestra more than 50 years ago but also in its first pairing with the original, Steve Richman conducting both versions with his New York ensemble. For a fun exercise, try mixing them up – a Tchaikovsky movement followed by its jazz counterpart. I did just that with the Dance of the Mirlitons and the cheekily renamed Toot Toot Tootie Toot (Dance of the Reed-Pipes), the latter is a miniature masterclass in Ellington’s perfectly balanced orchestration as the famous tune passes from staccato clarinets to slyly muted trumpets. It doesn’t get much steamier than the burlesque Sugar Rum Cherry, the crystalline glockenspiel replaced by Lew Tabackin’s hip-rolling, bluesy tenor sax. The whole thing runs a cool ten…

Colourful, inventive and utterly appealing, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio is one of those works that listeners enjoy returning to again and again. All the more reason then, to have a good recording – such as this one. Stephen Layton brings his customary insight to the presentation of this series of six linked cantatas that were designed to be sung on various days of the Christmas season and gathers together an impressive group of performers that give the work a truly festive air. Chief among the many attractive features of this performance is the incisive singing and diction of the Trinity College Cambridge Choir. Jauchzet, frohlocket, the opening chorus, is given a stately swagger that establishes a wonderfully joyful mood, but equally there is no loss of rhythmic momentum in such florid choral writing as Ehre sei Gott in the second cantata. Layton’s soloists are all first rate. James Gilchrist is an excellent, honey-toned Evangelist who tells the story with clarity and conviction. Katherine Watson has a suitably angelic soprano voice, while countertenor Iestyn Davies (a Layton regular) brings warmth and musicianship to everything he sings. The rich, seasoned bass of Matthew Brook cuts an imposing figure in Grosser Herr, und starker…

This is one of a number of new releases commemorating the 50th anniversary of Paul Hindemith’s death. His three Piano Sonatas were all written in the same year, 1936, after he’d fled the Nazis. (Hindemith wasn’t Jewish – the Nazis just hated his music.) The sonatas, while clearly from the same pen, have distinct profiles: the dramatic First has an improvisatory feel, the Second is lighter and the Third the most formally disciplined, with a Bach influence in its fugal finale. The booklet note states: “Hindemith… viewed the piano as providing a… neutral tone colouring through which the movement and intertwining of tones, themes and lines could be contemplated”. That may not be the whole story, but it seems to be how Markus Becker views this music. While far from being neutral in expression, his approach is thoughtful and balanced. Becker has a great many pluses: He brings coherence to the First Sonata, and the Third’s Sehr lebhaft movement positively flows (fluency in Hindemith – as opposed to, say, Chopin – does not come automatically. It requires hard work.) But for all his finesse there is one crucial aspect missing here: an underlying wildness that places Hindemith fairly and squarely…

What do you do in your spare time if you’re the world’s best selling female cellist? Go poking around in a Bavarian castle for undiscovered repertoire, of course. The third instalment of Sol Gabetta’s Vivaldi project blows dust off Italian concertos from the library of the cello-playing Count Shönborn, alongside four popular gems from the Red Priest himself. From the moment she enters as soloist in the opening Vivaldi concerto in A Minor, RV422, it’s clear the chops justify the sales. She draws out the melodic line like spun gold, with detailed trills, flowing phrases and buoyant, textured passage-work rather than just busywork. In the Allegro of Zani’s concerto she imaginatively bends the tuning to her will. The brother/sister duo with violinist and concertmaster Andres Gabetta offers a refreshing take on Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Mandolins in their own arrangement for violin and cello; the tone colour of each instrument is distinguished from the other, piquant and punchy, particularly when they echo one another in close repeated phrases. The Chelleri G Major concerto, with its memorable first-movement ritornello, has a blend of stately bearing and rollicking energy as played by the 16-strong ensemble. But despite the immediate charm of the…

Selecting a complete recording of this great score will depend on how you value ballet music. Do you want the sumptuous, leisurely approach favoured by a Karajan (largely undanceable), or a punchy, theatrical interpretation such as we got in 1954 from Antal Doráti on Mercury?  Or perhaps Richard Bonynge on Decca, which has both qualities? Neeme Järvi is clearly on the dancer’s side and turns in a vigorous, no holds barred interpretation; all very exciting. The Bergen orchestra, whilst very good, is not a sumptuous ensemble, so a reading appropriate to style was also a good idea. Whilst the playing is good, it is not trouble free. The rambunctious coda to the Act One Pas de trois with its syncopated rhythm is difficult to get right. Here the Norwegians simply cannot pull it off. Listen to Doráti’s superb mono recording to hear how it’s done. Overall, I found this new recording satisfactory but not in the same league as the older versions. Chandos clearly believe we all know enough about the ballet not to have included any notes. Saves all that reading; I’m grateful. However, there are many who know little about the ballet’s origins, and would not know that after the…

Volume 61 in Hyperion’s Romantic Piano Concerto project finds Howard Shelley in top form. Not only does he despatch hair-raisingly difficult passagework as if it were the simplest exercise, but he simultaneously directs from the keyboard, securing committed and alert playing from his Hobart colleagues. How far these labours are justified by the music’s merits remains the question. Theodor Döhler (1814-56) and Alexander Dreyschock (1818-69), both child prodigies who achieved brief renown, will be largely unknown. Dreyschock’s most admired achievement consisted of playing Chopin’s Revolutionary Study with octaves added to the left-hand; Döhler lacked even this claim upon posterity. Dreyschock’s Morceau de Concert deserves revival – a Beethovenian study in gravitas, with intelligent instrumentation in which cello and horns play significant roles. It seems odd that anyone capable of writing this should also have purveyed the clichéd homage to Vienna, for which even the booklet note cannot summon marked enthusiasm. Döhler’s concerto lies between the Dreyschock pieces in quality, with some imaginative modulations in the first movement but with bland note-spinning elsewhere. Hyperion’s engineering is clean and well-balanced, if slightly less opulent than the label’s best. Not among the finest releases in this valuable series. Continue reading Get unlimited digital…

The Birmingham students sing with vibrant, crystalline tone and exemplary diction, always underlining the meaning of the texts.

This issue serves to remind us what a gifted and supremely intelligent pianist we have in Roger Woodward. The program (lasting over 81 minutes) comes from a live concert recorded in 2007 in Bremen – a town notable for fine musicians. It encompasses Bach, Chopin and Debussy. For each of these three very different composers Woodward adopts a rigorously appropriate touch and approach. There is a current tendency to go for clarity in Debussy, from fine pianists such as Zimerman and Thibaudet, but Woodward tends towards the evocative approach of Walter Gieseking (without Gieseking’s occasional wrong notes). From the gossamer opening of Brouillards (Mists) to the random bursts of colour in the concluding Feux d’artifice (Fireworks), he creates specific tone pictures. Woodward’s playing of the first three Chopin Mazurkas underlines the music’s origins in dance. Rubato is expertly and subtly applied. Finally, he brings authority to the Bach, employing the attributes of the piano, such as the sustaining pedal, but remaining clear as a bell in emphasising the polyphonic strands. He also utilizes expressive devices of the Baroque era that older Bach pianists like Fischer and even Gould tended to avoid. Only in the Sarabande do I find this slightly…

Now here’s a CD that can’t be judged by its cover. No, it’s not a Janine Jansen solo album, although that’s the obvious, and presumably deliberate, first impression, but in fact a chamber music recording involving the Dutch violinist and five colleagues from her festival in Utrecht. And if anyone deserves to be featured in a hero-shot on the cover, it should in fact be audio engineer Julian Schwenkner who’s captured this interesting coupling of Schoenberg and Schubert in magnificent, warm, truly-contoured sound. As for the performances, every moment of Transfigured Night is drama-charged and driven home with commitment, making it easy to understand how the Second Viennese School arose not out of some abstract theory, but from late-Romantic hyperemotionalism. Jansen’s sweettoned fiddle balanced against the rich dual-cello sound makes Schoenberg’s haunting picture of Maeterlinck’s lovers in a moonlit forest into a compelling listen. The Schubert’s pretty good too, but as sometimes happens when friends get together, it perhaps misses some of the profundity, especially in the glorious Trio of the Scherzo, which suggests players anxiously glancing at one another, rather than the played-inblood, rip-your-heart-out shredfest that permanent ensembles like the Guarneris bring to it on disc. State of the…

Frans Brüggen seems to be enjoying a renaissance in his recording career. One review described his readings of these two staples (depicting destinations on the Grand Tour) as having light-footed fluency. I disagree: His Italian Symphony sounds quite leaden in the first movement, rather as Klemperer might have conducted it but certainly didn’t (Klemperer’s reading is one of the fastest in the catalogue). Brüggen’s Italy won’t have the Grand Tourists reaching for their 30+ sunblock either. There’s not much dazzling light – or attack. At least he includes the first movement repeat with its delicious, woodwind-dominated lead-back passage. The middle movements are unremarkable but the tarantella finale compensates for the foregoing lethargy. The Scottish is more suited to Brüggen’s spirit. The first movement is appropriately ruminative and creates a brooding, mist-shrouded landscape with prominent swirling woodwind and strings, more pondered than ponderous, you might say. Brüggen integrates the coda more convincingly than usual but I found the late entry of the clarinet in the ‘highland fling’ scherzo grated on repetition. Brüggen and his forces are at their best in the Scottish symphony’s Adagio, where both the orchestral colours and textures perfectly capture the atmosphere. I’d still opt for Klemperer in……

It’s 28 years since René Jacobs sung the alto arias on Phillipe Herreweghe’s first recording of the St. Matthew Passion, which despite many superb recordings over the years has remained my favourite until now. Since taking up the baton Jacobs has given us some extraordinarily bold and personal visions of the sacred and profane. Having finally tackled this greatest masterpiece of all he is bound to cause a great deal of critical tutt-tutting with this defiantly “post-historical” interpretation using the superb RIAS Kammerchor, who have a fuller sound than the usual specialist early music ensembles and a lineup of operatic soloists; this is a redbloodedly sensual performance that may make purists foam at the mouth. In typical Jacobs’ fashion the recitatives are enhanced with a more varied continuo than usual; it is quite a shock to hear harpsichord and lute alongside the usual organ. Sunhae Im delivers soprano arias with a sinfully feminine allure (no pallid impersonations of boy sopranos here) and Bernarda Fink’s alto arias are passionately heartfelt although her tone is finally starting to show some wear; her Erbarme dich is a devastating expression of guilt. Werner Güra’s stunningly well sung Evangelist drives the narrative forward with marvelously…

Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt has played the music of Gabriel Fauré all her life. As she admits in her notes, he is an elusive composer. Aspects of Schumann surface in his early Nocturnes, their accompaniments containing tricky cross-rhythms, yet the Valse Caprice No 1, Op 30 has all the surface sparkle of Saint-Saëns. Fauré is too subtly complex to be regarded as a mere salon composer, although for years that is how pianists thought of him. Hewitt is aware of the contradictory sides composer, and does not restrain herself in terms of sheer power of attack when necessary. The central part of her program consists of three Nocturnes. No 6 in D Flat is the best known, a waltz with a seemingly simple (but harmonically unpredictable) opening melody supported by rippling arpeggios. No 13, from 1921, pares back all superfluous decoration to reveal the composer’s final thoughts for his favourite instrument (like Beethoven, Fauré went deaf in old age). Hewitt’s phrasing, dynamic variations and strength serve the composer well. Her recital closes with the early Ballade (later scored by the composer for piano and orchestra). Here I felt her to be too heavy-handed. The dry, light touch of Jean-Philippe Collard…