These performances have aged very well indeed making this an ideal way to discover HWH.

Volkmar Andreae (1879-1962), the Swiss composer and conductor, is not well known athough he directed the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra from 1906 to 1949 and was so well regarded as a conductor that he was offered the New York Philharmonic after Mahler resigned in 1911. As a young man the musical world almost lost him to the military, and during the First World War he was often released from his duties at the Tonhalle for this purpose. He also led the Zurich Conservatorium between 1914 and 1939. His music is gracious, melodious and attractively romantic. That there is hardly an original note in his compositions will not be of great moment to those drawn to his music. His grandson, conductor Marc Andreae, is part of a determined effort to resurrect the man’s music, backed by Guild, the record label. This CD is a part of that laudable exercise. The Piano Concerto is excellent, and will sound familiar. Those who know the Litolff Scherzo will know what I mean. The first movement, the better of the three, happily plays around in fields inhabited by Grieg and Rachmaninov. Once you get into the single movement Concert Piece, his composition becomes more radiant… Continue reading Get…

Three discs in a year and it’s safe to say that Diego Fasolis is serious about Steffani (1654–1728). The conductor and his energetic period orchestra accompanied Cecilia Bartoli on her Mission album to revive the Italian priest’s reputation, following that success with his sombre, subdued Stabat Mater. Now I Barrochisti step out from under Bartoli’s cassock (see questionable Mission cover art) into their own with an all-instrumental selection from the operas. An Italian who perfected his art in Rome but took up ecclesiastical posts in Munich, Hanover and Düsseldorf, Agostino Steffani somehow became king of the French overture, of which there are several searingly focused examples. He couldn’t have asked for more sympathetic champions in this generous collection of 43 little gems. Fanfare outbursts of natural horns and thundering timpani in Niobe, Regina di Tebe (a neglected opera dusted off at Covent Garden in 2010) add a wild edge to an elegant sound without trampling over the refined, lilting articulation. There’s a delicious lick of the exotic in the light yet detailed percussion of La liberta contenda and Orlando generoso. I Barrochisti relish a playful rigadoun or an uprushing tempest, always making the most of Steffani’s dramatic flourishes. The album’s…

The challenge with all of Nyman’s pulsing neo-Baroque music is to bring interest and variety.

Intimidated by the example of Beethoven’s late quartets, Brahms struggled for years before finally publishing his first two string quartets in 1873. By contrast, so inspired was he by the playing of the Meiningen Hofkapelle’s principal clarinettist Richard Mülfeld, whom he met in early 1891, that he wrote the Clarinet Quartet and Clarinet Trio in just a few weeks. Mülfeld and the Joachim Quartet premiered the Clarinet Quartet on December 12, 1891. It was an immediate hit. This beautiful new recording brings together the Clarinet Quintet and the A Minor String Quartet Op 51 No 2. It also brings together the Jerusalem Quartet, formed in 1993 and thanks to Musica Viva no stranger to Australian concert-goers, and that equally enthusiastic advocate for chamber music, Israeli clarinettist Sharon Kam. Excellent performances of the Clarinet Quintet abound. My personal favourites include Thea King with the Gabrieli Quartet on Hyperion and the Nash Ensemble on Wigmore Hall Live: both, true to the nature of the work, eschew any attempt to isolate the clarinet; it is instead effortlessly integrated into the string texture. Which is exactly what Kam does here, trusting individuality to timbre and tone while perfectly weighting volume and phrasing against the…

Bowling up the dusty drive to the extensive Huntington Estate winery near Mudgee you’re immediately reminded it’s been a dry year out here in rural NSW. In her welcome speech, Nicky Boud the cheerful general manager informed us that “gentlemen should feel free to water the vines – all donations would be welcome.” Given that an evening’s event here can begin at 6pm with a pre-concert talk from Carl Vine, followed by canapés and drinks, a two-and-a-half-hour concert (with interval refreshments) and then a sit down supper with unlimited beverages, I should imagine those vines will be running positively rampant by Saturday night! Thinking about what to blog about, my first thought was the food – no the wine – no, maybe I should start with the music. Or should I just have another glass of the excellent Cabernet Merlot (a case of which is now in the boot of my car) and chill out a bit. Actually, I think I can manage a bit about all of the above. And the scores for all three should come out pretty high. The food is not only excellent – it appears to be unlimited. Looking at my fellow travellers, many of…

As well as being one of the greatest composers of the 20th century, Benjamin Britten was also a distinguished conductor, accompanist and chamber musician. Collected here for the first time, in this captivating 26 CD box, are the fruits of his most important labours in these fields. Britten’s singular talent was for getting inside the mind of his fellow composers, whether it be Mozart, Schubert or Elgar, and generating something entirely original. It’s not always what they might have wanted (he takes untold liberties with The Dream of Gerontius), but he seldom fails to excite, often with a heart-stopping moment of enormous originality. Highlights include a revolutionary reading of Schumann’s Scenes from Goethe’s Faust – a masterpiece scarcely touched until this 1972 recording, his landmark Schubert and Schumann recitals accompanying Peter Pears and that radical Elgar, pushing the envelope farther than even Barbirolli was prepared to go. If his Bach is less well recorded and a million miles from the period instrument school of thought, his Brandenburgs are still one of the best pre-1970 versions. Other classics include Mozart piano concertos with Clifford Curzon as soloist, his visionary Mozart and Schubert for two pianos where he’s joined by Sviatoslav Richter and Schubert’s Arpeggione with Rostropovich. All in all, a must have. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Here are two exceptional reissues. The Brahms consists of 1980s recordings featuring András Schiff with the Takács Quartet in the F Minor Piano Quintet, and with Viennese colleagues in the Horn and Clarinet Trios. VPO principal clarinetist Peter Schmidl is heard in the Clarinet Quintet. If that weren’t enough, Schiff plays the four-hand Variations on a Theme of Schumann, joined by no less a partner than Georg Solti. This fine collection covers works from all periods of Brahms’s life, but is especially recommendable for the autumnal late works. An interesting comparison may be made with the heart-on-sleeve Clarinet Quintet played by a Viennese ensemble of an earlier era, in the massive but treasurable Westminster Chamber Music collection. Fascinating generational differences. The ASMF disc restores Argo recordings from 1968 when Neville Marriner still played violin with the ensemble. Boccherini’s late quintet (one of over a hundred of the composer’s works in this form) is typically gentle and mellifluous, while Mendelssohn’s Octet is a recognised masterpiece. Both are very well played, though I think the Academy’s English good manners suit Boccherini better. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Max Raabe and his Palast Orchestra have been cult artists for several years. Their work has appeared on German labels, along with a terrific Kurt Weill album conducted by HK Gruber for RCA in 2001. Now Raabe and his authentic 1930s band have signed with Universal. Their mission is to resurrect what Ian Wekwerth’s notes call the ‘shellac’ sound of crooners of the Rudy Vallee and Bing Crosby vintage. Hence, band arrangements feature oily saxophones and jazzy brass fills, plus a more present drum sound than we used to get on old 78s. Raabe himself is unique. His voice is at the same time resonant, with a wide range, and nasal. His ever so slightly Germanic pronunciation lends an air of high camp to the proceedings. This is also born out in his choice of repertoire. While legitimate hits of the 1920s and 30s are included, such as Singin’ in the Rain and Brecht and Weill’s Alabama Song – both of which he performs with authentic charm – there are also point numbers like Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf and Cosi Cosa from the Marx Brothers film A Night at the Opera. As a bonus we get Raabe’s hilariously po-faced 30s rendition of Britney Spears’ Oops, I Did It Again, but in a shorter form than the older version where he reproduced the dialogue. (Don’t ask how I know…) Some fun originals and vivid sound add to the disc’s…

Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic’s recordings for the yellow label from the 1970s, minus the operas.

The ABC’s decision to record the complete Beethoven piano sonatas with Australia’s foremost specialist Gerard Willems was launched in the late 1990s and hailed as a first for the country. The three-year project was given an added frisson by Willems’s decision to use pianos built by Aussie Wayne Stuart rather than the ubiquitous Steinway. Wayne Stuart’s skills as a piano maker were first tested when as a young man he played dance music published by J. Albert and Son at village halls around the country. The upright pianos were in varying states of disrepair and he often had to fix and tune them before the gig. Years later when his piano company in Melbourne wasn’t going anywhere Robert Albert, head of the publishing company, asked Stuart if they could come in on a joint venture. “I was hoping for ages that you would ask me that,” Stuart replied. A couple of ARIAs later and with burgeoning sales, the next logical step – the five piano concertos – was announced with Willems being joined by Antony Walker conducting Sinfonia Australis, drawn from the cream of our orchestras. In 2010 Willems was back in the Ultimo studio tackling the mighty Diabelli Variations….

Melbourne composer Stuart Greenbaum’s chamber works, like all the best art, is in the world but not of the world – qualities which are sympathetically brought out in these performances by one of New Zealand’s leading chamber ensembles, NZTrio. Head of Composition at the Melbourne Conservatorium, Greenbaum has written opera, choral, orchestral, chamber and solo instrumental music. This new recording features eight works exploring the latter two genres from between 1999 and 2011. The title work, 800 Million Heartbeats, takes the nominal number of heartbeats in a human life as a metaphor for life’s journey. Falling by Degrees explores gravity and falling in seven miniatures. Equator Loops and Lunar Orbit are for solo piano and cello respectively, while The Lake and the Hinterland and Scarborough Variations combine both instruments. The Year Without A Summer takes the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora as its subject. Greenbaum says his music “aims to evoke an atmosphere apart from the routine of modern life”. But by drawing on familiar styles such as blues, pop and jazz, his music celebrates modern life in all its forms. It simply jettisons the routine. Thus… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in