Andreas Ottensamer is one of these frustrating overachievers who are obscenely good at everything. Born into a family of clarinetists, the Viennese wunderkind walked away from Harvard to pursue a career in the Berlin Philharmonic where, at the tender age of 24, he now occupies the principal post in his section. It’s a mystery how the first solo clarinetist ever to be signed to the Yellow Label also manages to model part-time and keep up his game in the football club he founded: the Wiener Virtuosen. I don’t want to penalise Ottensamer for his abundant gifts, but his Deutsche Grammophon debut Portraits just seems a little too perfect, much like the chiselled features highlighted on the album cover. Amongst these diverse musical portraits were a few leaky watercolours but not enough to spoil the exhibition; Ottensamer’s articulation is so flawlessly legato that occasionally it’s difficult to shake the ear out of its reverie, especially in the arrangement of Debussy’s La fille aux cheveux de lin. Copland’s pointillistic, madcap concerto glides smoothly by in the slow opening movement, until the cadenza kicks in – dazzling, if a little cautious in comparison, for example, with Martin Fröst’s plucky, devil-may-care version, which accelerates…

This mammoth tribute to the great Renaissance philosopher Erasmus could well be considered a folly (at least from a business point of view) in these times of global economic woes. Encased in a lavishly illustrated hardcover book are six discs; three of them containing the complete program, which includes both music and narrated excerpts (in French) from the works of Erasmus and his contemporaries, while the other three discs contain the music alone. A voucher accompanying the book allows the purchaser to download the narrated program in an impressive six other languages of choice, including English, from the Alia Vox website. It is no surprise that the first disc entitled ‘Praise of Folly’ pays homage not only to Erasmus’s great work of that name, but also to the famous dance music tradition of ‘La Folia’. The second disc, ‘Time of Reflections’ surveys events surrounding the earlier life of Erasmus while the third disc, ‘Time of Confrontation’ chronicles the advent of Machiavelli, the Reformation, and the death of Erasmus. The literary and musical breadth of the program, conceived by Jordi Savall and his late wife Montserrat Figueras, is monumental. By using recent recordings as well as some from as far back……

The true mark of an exceptional jazz ensemble is their ability to achieve tight, flawless unison whilst ensuring balance and clarity. Mark Isaacs’ latest offering from ARIA nominated Resurgence, “Duende” manages to consistently to achieve this with a rare mix of sophistication and impressive honesty. In terms of original material, the Australian composer’s pieces are sleek and polished. Rather than falling into a ‘search for musical revolution’, these pieces are certainly innovative and definitely fresh, but somehow they still retain the roots of good jazz. The album itself is diverse and provides ample opportunities to demonstrate the immense talent of the artists involved. Isaacs stays away from featuring the vocalist too prominently. You Never Forget Love is smooth and sultry, with just enough dissonant crunch to keep the listener interested. It makes a surprisingly mature showpiece for 24 year-old vocalist Briana Cowlishaw, her voice effortless with absolutely no tension in the sound. Aside from this piece, Cowlishaw is as much an ensemble member as the rest of Resurgence. That said, it would be nice to hear more from her in the future – maybe the next CD? First Light is a rare gem. It is heart-wrenchingly understated and possesses a…

I have recently been taking a personal stock take. I shut myself down for a couple days while staff went about the shelves and aisles of Guy Noble looking at what items were in stock. One of the things they found (apart from dusty boxes of memories and an old sports sock) was an astounding warehouse of impatience. I am one of up the most impatient people I have ever met. I am always railing against that phenomenon at traffic lights where every driver takes just a little bit more time than the one in front to put foot to accelerator and move on. This is an awful waste of time, and if the government really wanted to improve productivity in this country it would install a sort of countdown system so that a line of 20 cars could move off at the exact same time, thereby saving maybe six minutes over an entire day of driving. Those extra minutes could then be better spent checking on your friends’ Facebook updates or practising scales. I am so impatient I have no time for repeats. Certain movements of Haydn’s symphonies are so boring that to hear them once stretches the friendship;…

Over recent years Universal has released a series of well-priced box sets showcasing their labels with individual discs nostalgically packaged in mini LP covers and a hefty booklet documenting the history of the label. The frustrating mix of mainstream favourites with a handful of rarities has proved the proverbial curate’s egg for hard-core collectors, who will be tempted by unreleased gems. Archiv Produktion was founded in 1947 as a sub-label of Deutsche Grammophon specialising in early music, and this celebratory box gives us a chronological selection including a Bach organ recital by Helmut Walcha and some important first CD releases of 1950’s pioneers. More recent releases include a tempting taster from the superb 10CD box of Victoria by Michael Noone’s Ensemble Plus Ultra. For the first 20 discs period instruments are a rarity apart from encounters with mavericks like Jurgens and Harnoncourt. To modern ears most of the early releases now sound quaintly “ye olde musicke” with tootling recorders and “birdcage rattled by a toasting-fork” harpsichords. They caught up by the 1980s signing Reinhard Goebel and his supergroup Musica Antiqua Köln and the finest of British groups, John Eliot Gardiner’s English Baroque Soloists and Trevor Pinnock’s English Concert. Bach lovers…

The only gripe I have with this otherwise splendid CD is the fact that the three works are not presented in chronological order, especially as they represent the three distinct musical periods in Szymanowski’s chameleon-like composing career and are quite different from each other in idiom. The otherwise excellent Chandos usually gets this sort of thing right. In its “spangled bumptiousness”, as one deathless description had it, the Concert Overture, composed in 1904, is an unashamed homage to Richard Strauss, especially reminiscent of Don Juan with the opening vaulting motif followed by the a tender, lyrical theme. I hope it won’t be the kiss of death when I reveal that the Second Symphony (1909-10) was influenced by Max Reger’s fin-de-siècle hothouse chromaticism, although, fortunately, it lacks his academic dryness. The idiom is more akin to the intense ambience of Schoenberg’s Pelleas und Melisande, though without its thicket-like orchestral textures. It begins curiously with a violin solo, and moments of intimacy are overshadowed by a hankering for expressive climaxes. The second movement opens with a lovely string melody followed by charming Rococo variations including a gavotte and a minuet before the various strands are woven into a highly convincing contrapuntal finale….

Late Britten can be obscure and less approachable than earlier masterpieces like Peter Grimes and Albert Herring. Written for a small, spare ensemble, the music supports the story well enough, without falling into the successful opera trap of being emotionally involving. One admires rather than loves the music. Tony Palmer’s fine film of Britten’s last opera was made at the instigation of the tenor, Peter Pears, Britten’s long-time partner. Pears was too frail to play the part which Britten had written for him, and Australian tenor, Robert Gard, was gifted with the role of the jaded Aschenbach, which he accomplished superbly. Gard, now retired, had long been noted for his superb diction and deep musicality, making him an ideal successor to the tradition established by Pears. I have no hesitation in saying that I prefer Gard’s singing to that of Pears himself, whose vocal mannerisms from mid-career often reduced his artistry to vocal prissiness. Palmer has allowed his imagination to run free in many respects claiming the opera for the screen. In works of the mind, film is able to evoke more images and deal with illusions more successfully than can be accomplished on a stage. The opera is virtually…

It looked an enervating prospect: an entire disc devoted to Bach family members who in several cases are too obscure for any musical encyclopaedia smaller than Grove. The result – consistently well played on an organ in Melk Abbey, Austria – quickly banishes boredom to prove an improbable artistic success, aided by a beautifully austere cover design. Heinrich Bach died in 1692, but the chorale prelude with which this CD begins sounds so pleasantly old-fashioned as to imply a 16th rather than 17th-century composer. By contrast, the Prelude and Fugue in E Flat by Heinrich’s son, the underrated Johann Christoph Bach (1642-1703), second cousin of Johann Sebastian), could easily be mistaken for Buxtehude. The Fugue in C Minor by a much better known figure, WF Bach, likewise possesses real distinction, tending to justify the hopes which JSB placed in his eldest son, and inspiring in at least one listener a desire to track down the rest of WF’s organ output. Uniquely among the compositions on this release, the remarkably effective fugue by Johann Christian Bach – not the eponymous ‘English Bach’, but a younger man whose dates were 1745-1814 – is based on the B-A-C-H theme afterwards so profitable to… Continue…

For those of you wondering what happened after our appearance at Polyfollia, an international festival of choral music in Normandy, here you go.

When they burst onto the chamber music scene in the 1970s, the Emerson String Quartet were iconoclasts. New York-based, they swapped first and second violin roles, and along with the Brodskys and Kronos they swept away the grand but stuffy tradition embodied by the Amadeus and the Guarneris. And now, nine Grammys later, they’re continuing to push the boundaries with an intriguing CD featuring the bookends of arguably the most momentous decade ever in classical music. Joined by long-time collaborators, American violist Paul Neubauer and British cellist Colin Carr, the Emerson’s readings of the great sextets by Tchaikovsky and Schoenberg are like a lesson in musical history. Tchaikovsky, at the beginning of the 1890s, used his Souvenir de Florence (the slow movement was written in the city) to continue the classical traditions that he inherited from his models Mozart and Mendelssohn. Then, at the end of that decade – indeed century – the young Schoenberg in his Transfigured Night sent music into the future, his twisted harmonies depicting haunted forests and psycho-babbling sensualists. And in this wonderfully-played CD, which is being hailed as a farewell for cellist David Finckel who’s leaving after 34 years, the Emersons and friends do everything…

A glorious slideshow of works rolls out with a superb sense of freshness under Lisiecki’s fingers.

Il Trittico can be seen as Puccini’s operatic response to the challenge of cinema: three pacey shorts with flavoursome, impressionistic music designed to project a sense of time, place and action but with less of a focus on the traditional aria.  Richard Jones’ smart looking production from Covent Garden is its first Royal Opera staging in fifty years but with an excellent ensemble and stylish conducting from Antonio Pappano it clearly deserves to find a place in their permanent repertoire. The first instalment, Il Tabarro, is a miniature verissmo shocker set on a sweltering night in a seedy, Parisian waterside community (just off the red light district it would appear in this staging).  This is the dark side of La Bohème (Puccini even quotes from Mimi’s aria).  A tale of adultery and murder it receives passionate and pointedly non-glamorous performances from Eva-Maria Westbroek and Aleksandrs Antonenko as the doomed lovers.  Lucio Gallo puts in a sympathetic turn as the betrayed husband although vocally he is a bit dull.  The supporting roles are beautifully realised, especially Jeremy White and Irina Mishura as a world-weary docker and his wife. Next comes Puccini’s personal favourite, the gentle tragedy of Suor Angelica, which is…