Malcolm Martineau is not just one of his generation’s finest accompanists, but also a first-rate musical curator with an impressive knack for matching songs to singers. This 2-CD collection of Britten songs is the second in its series, notable both for the breadth of repertoire assembled and as a platform for some of Britain’s rising vocal stars. Much of Britten’s vocal music was of course written expressly for his partner and music, Peter Pears. This collection includes both the first and last piano/voice cycles Britten wrote for the tenor: the amorous Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo (performed by Allan Clayton) and Who are these children?, given authentic Scots lilt by Nicky Spence. Robin Tritschler and Benjamin Hulett, take on the other Pears-inspired repertoire, with Hulett’s elegant, witty singing in The Red Cockatoo and other songs especially appealing. Maybe a greater variety among these high male voices would have been welcome – despite its common inspiration, Britten’s music for tenor is remarkably adaptable – but all four sing with admirable commitment and clarity. Also striking is baritone Benedict Nelson, in the dark and mystical Songs and Proverbs of William Blake, his slightly rough-hewn timbre a compelling jolt amid so many sweet-voiced tenors….

Meticulous. Polished. A perfectionist. These are terms frequently applied to Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). It is true that there is never a wasted note or an indistinct effect in his work. He is also linked inextricably to Debussy under the heading “Impressionist”, but Ravel’s music is less ethereal and his harmonic thinking conceived quite differently. (Debussy places unrelated chords in the ether; Ravel’s harmony is structured more like contemporary jazz. He employs chords of the 9th, 11th and 13th degrees of the scale but eliminates their roots.) Ravel’s personality was reserved and enigmatic – he was famously more relaxed with children than with adults – and this led to the perception that his music was merely polished surfaces. So it is, but I find tremendous heart in the melting opening of his String Quartet, or the tender closing chorus of the strangely affecting opera L’enfant et les Sortilèges. Nor does his polish make him a conservative composer. What could be more out there than Boléro? The climatic harmonic resolution is orgasmic! Scarbo from Gaspard de la nuit is extreme both in its technique and its inspiration. Virtuosity and spontaneity again combine in the rousing finale of the opera L’Heure espagnol in……

Keeping in mind that the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould would have celebrated his 80th birthday just a few months ago, Sony has seen fit to release a deluxe limited set which gathers together all of Gould’s JS Bach recordings, mostly in their original LP covers with the photogenic, iconoclastic Gould often in full focus. It is just as well that an impressive hardback book accompanies the set, thereby reproducing the liner notes (often by Gould himself) at a legible size. Of course, many regard his two wildly divergent studio recordings of the Goldberg Variations (1955 in mono, 1981 in digital stereo) as seminal, but there is much to be discovered here for the uninitiated. It should be noted, though, that as Sony has chosen to reproduce the albums as initially released, we occasionally get items overlapping throughout the set – excerpts from the Well-Tempered Clavier can also be found on the compilation Little Bach Book, for example. In this collection we have no fewer than five Goldberg recordings, including a live traversal from a late 1950s Salzburg recital and a CBC radio broadcast from as early as 1954. One wonders why certain concerti are repeated, and whether the stereo remix… Continue…

What a journey it’s been. Since 1987, Australian classical group Guitar Trek has been at the forefront of commissioning new works for guitar quartet, as well as working with luthiers to develop different-size guitars to form a true guitar family: treble, standard, baritone and bass (steel as well as nylon string guitars are utilised). This recording, actually made in 2007, has been released to celebrate 25 years of Guitar Trek and features works by some of Australia’s best-known composers for the instrument: Nigel Westlake, Phillip Houghton, Richard Charlton and Martin Wesley-Smith. The Guitar Trek line-up here features Timothy Kain, Minh Le Hoang, Daniel McKay and Harold Gretton (it’s since changed, with Bradley Kunda and Matt Withers replacing McKay and Gretton). If Westlake’s Six Fish scintillates with shimmering water, pointillistic textures and playful melodies, Houghton’s Nocturne, originally for piano, is a study in meditative if occasionally ruffled calm and moonlit passages. Charlton’s Capricorn Skies is “an attempt to capture in sound the mood or resonance of a variety of Australian skies and landscapes”. It’s a tour-de-force of sound-painting that finds Guitar Trek at its most dramatically expansive. The following non-linear Wave Radiance by Houghton, who describes it as a “sonic event”…

You wouldn’t have thought it perhaps, but the humble trio sonata (commonly defined as two violin lines plus continuo) was at the cutting edge of new music circa 1600. Nowhere was this better exemplified than in Italy, the cradle of the stile moderno as created by Cacini and Monteverdi. This delightful disc from London Baroque is the sixth of a series of eight chasing the history of the trio sonata across Europe. It should rightly be labelled the first, however, exploring as it does the form from embryonic beginnings through to its full flowering with Arcangelo Corelli. As always with new movements in music, there is a fascinating coalface at which numerous composers hew away, as yet unsure of what boundaries will be imposed upon them. Thus we have examples of canzonas, sinfonias, chaconnes, passacaglias or just plain popular dances, many of them in infectious triple time. Amongst numerous highlights are Buonamente’s haunting variations on La Romanesca, a pair of skipping Ciaconas from Merula and Cazzati and sprightly  sonatas from the likes of Castello, Legrenzi and Falconiero. Perhaps the strangest find is Marini’s Sonata Sopra Fuggi Dolente Core, which turns out to be a set of charming variations on the……

Simply put, this is a superb disc. Artists and repertoire are a perfect match – and what repertoire! Schubert’s Quintet is one of those pieces where every idea is musical gold and the juxtaposition of those ideas creates a totally captivating masterpiece. No matter that the work lasts some 55 minutes: chronological time seems hardly to register at all. In fact, there are moments (like the outer sections of the second-movement Adagio) where time seems utterly suspended and we are given a glimpse of eternity. This extraordinary outpouring from the very end of Schubert’s all too brief life is given a deeply thoughtful and beautifully polished reading by the Takács with guest cellist Ralph Kirshbaum, who fits seamlessly into the musical fabric. Underpinning the many glories of this recording is an exceptional sense of ensemble that generates the most finely gradated variations in timbre and texture. (The first two movements abound in wonderful examples of subtle colouring.) From the very first chord that emerges from sonic darkness, it is clear that the players will not shy away from probing the complexity of emotion that Schubert presents in this piece. The constantly changing light and shade of the music is movingly…

Australian audiences experienced Alina Ibragimova’s light, luminous tone firsthand in her recitals with pianist Cédric Tiberghien. It’s a sound as suited to the beloved Mendelssohn concerto as the 27-year-old violinist is to her partners on this disc, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. On gut strings, this warhorse is leavened with much-needed finesse. Ibragimova launches straight into the first movement’s Molto Appassionato with sweetly focused tone – no need to milk that aching, Jewish-sounding melody when it unfolds so simply. She lingers tantalisingly on lyrical phrases, but dispatches fast passages with whiplike agility (if a little less warmth), only occasionally on the verge of getting ahead of herself. It’s that balance of impetuous zeal reeled in by cool, crisp discipline that makes this young firebrand such an exciting performer. Her cadenza is heart-on-sleeve with some very exposed playing – delicate but not lacking in energy – and the riccochet passage passes through ear-bending dynamic gradation before melting back into the main theme of the orchestral recapitulation. Throughout most of the recording Ibragimova uses vibrato sparingly but judiciously. It’s a little soppy in the tranquil Andante, but still a palate cleanser compared to sickly sweet James Ehnes on Onyx. The…

It is a real challenge, creating the right environment for the artists involved, and it has led to some absolutely wonderful explorations into good music making akin to that encountered in a music festival. From a very young age musicians are encouraged to work with a changing array of colleagues in order to experience the unique challenges and excitement of ensemble playing. The magic of learning from others and their experiences is what great chamber music is all about. Each tour in the Selby & Friends annual series is a blank canvas on which to paint. Sometimes I think I will be able to follow a route successfully taken in the past, but somehow it never seems to work out that way. I begin by sourcing musicians with whom I would like to work and to find out their availability. It is often a difficult process knowing who is around. Sometimes it is pure serendipity to find a superb artist in town just when you were hoping they would be! I have a strong network of colleagues with whom I stay in touch and with whom I really like working and touring and they also stay in touch with me….

January 3, 2013 saw me apprehensively lobbing into the great city of Southampton for the Royal Musical Association’s yearly postgraduate conference. This august affair lasts roughly the same time it took Christ to die and rise again (but packs far more into the stingily triduan timespan). In addition to presenting a paper of my own (I got the graveyard session, held the morning after the conference dinner), I attended about 20 others, as well as keynote addresses, a handful of helpful advisory sessions (in which we, aspiring academics all, were corralled into lecture theatres and methodically disillusioned about our career prospects), and numerous coffee breaks, in which I awkwardly attempted small talk with fellow conference-goers (though mostly I fell into an Oxford clique, which, in its Oxford way, was scarcely less awkward). What a knees-up it was – a tremendous way to usher in the new year. Anyhow, after my paper (on Pärt’s Miserere and Josquin’s Miserere mei, Deus) had tiredly come and gone, I was followed by Jessica Ruth Morris of Cardiff University, who perked everybody up with a talk entitled ‘Postminimalism in Music’. Postminimalism – it’s an elusive term indeed, on whose very intractability Ruth spoke informatively and……

A pearl on Sydney Harbour, the Sydney Opera House was loathed during the time of its construction for lengthy delays and enormous cost blowouts. The Opera House today however is still marvelled for its architectural significance and beauty. It has become a landmark for Sydney and a landmark for the arts. Perhaps this is a broader metaphor for the arts that are too often critisised for costs, and in years to come eventually marvelled at for their brilliance. The Sydney Opera House is not alone in its ability to raise controversy during construction. I've come across a few concert halls lately that to me stand out as architectural masterpieces that are fortunate enough today to have acoustics that match the brilliance of the exterior. Despite being a precarious time for many orchestras, particularly in the USA, this seems to have had little effect on the number of new and renovated concert halls under construction. Perhaps the importance of a venue has never been more important in performing arts organisations attempting to attract new audiences. Elbphilharmonie (Hamburg, Germany) Incorporates a 2150-seat Grand Hall, 550-seat recital hall, 150-seat experimental music room and a 37 meter high public plaza overlooking the harbour Completion…

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was one of the 18th century’s great musical rebels, working in a revolutionary and transitional period but destined to be overshadowed by others. History has a way of doing that to composers who don’t fit neatly into boxes. His father Johann Sebastian Bach and Mozart, geniuses both, perfectly reflect their times. Emanuel Bach may have been just as gifted, but he is neither Baroque fish nor Classical fowl and only now, it seems, are we really beginning to recognise his unique talents. Eschewing the single-emotion-per-movement model of his father’s generation, he revels in veering from one mood to another, juxtaposing introspection with temperamental outbursts and exploring divergent rhythms and quirky harmonies. Revered by Mozart, this is music that at times reaches beyond Classicism into the turbulence of Beethoven and the Romantic period. In short, CPE Bach was quite a visionary. There are four Sonatas here, the first dating from 1744 (Emanuel’s most radical period) while the latest work, a Fantasie, dates from 1787, the year before he died. The early F-Sharp Minor Sonata begins with a highly unsettling movement, playing off an unstable rhythmic motive against an endearing gallant tune. His kaleidoscopic treatment of… Continue reading…

As far as I could tell, during our music, plans for new cities were being mapped out, generational feuds were coming to their messy conclusions, and all manner of Serious Things were vigorously discussed, most of it on phones. But it’s charming! As it turns out, they were discussing the music and some of our weird noises, which seemed to really strike a hexachord (ouch – sorry for the nerdiness!) They even sang along to a folk song they recognized. Their applause, rather than arriving in discrete bell-shaped packets between the works, was distributed evenly throughout the music (circus-style) as the sine wave.      a = 1 + sin t     (where a = Approval and t = Time). As long as it takes for me to lower my hands at the end of a piece and quickly turn around to grab a bow – that’s how long they clapped, in Shanghai at the Lyceum.  Curiously, it’s the more adventurous, complex and strange music that they really respond to. Already I’m considering repertoire for the next tour: maybe a Liza Lim, or an Elliot Gyger? In Nicholas Ng’s Stellar Mansions (a “meditation on Tao, Life and the Universe”) we lie…