Only in recent years has Charles Ives been acknowledged as a founding father of American classical music, but there can be no mistaking the true grit in his four violin sonatas, all composed before 1920. Youthful brio, blistering technique and a fierce musical intellect make Hilary Hahn the ideal interpreter of her countryman’s work. She and Ukrainian pianist Valentina Lisitsa have been exploring the sonatas together for a few years and the synergy they have achieved is remarkable, considering the  two parts are often composed to sound entirely disjointed from one another. It’s clear from the duo’s mercurial rhythmic interplay just how much fun they’re having with this music. Hahn’s sweet-toned violin is closely-miked for a dry, honest sound that matches the directness of Ives’s borrowings from hymns, ragtime and spirituals. North Carolina-based Lisitsa calls these tuneful quotations “American as apple pie”, and that’s the spirit in which she attacks buoyant, punchy passages. But the players are just as expressive in gentle moments of reflection, easing into Debussyesque lyricism for the Autumn movement of Sonata No 2. Highlights: the wide-eyed adventure of the Sonata No 4 Children’s Day at the Camp Meeting, its final movement… Continue reading Get unlimited digital…

Here is a compendium of four British rhapsodies for lost worlds. Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending is a sublime expression of pure joy, as violin soars against orchestra to weave its line of melody against the sky. Michael Dauth and the SSO combine with lyrical delicacy in a work that demands surrender to its idyllic beauty. More attention is needed for the song cycle On Wenlock Edge, Vaughan Williams’s settings of A E Housman taken from A Shropshire Lad  – rural poems of love and grief as soldiers went to die on foreign soil. Tenor Steve Davislim with Benjamin Martin on piano and the Hamer Quartet find quiet beauty in the sadness of these poems, and the fine audio experience provided by the SACD format makes for a profoundly moving experience. Vaughan Williams’s work for viola, chorus and orchestra Flos Campi is performed perhaps better than it deserves to be. The work always sounds to me like the soundtrack to a portentous 1950s sci-fi movie.  Amid these pieces is a solitary symphonic work by Benjamin Britten, his Sinfonia da Requiem, a supposedly celebratory piece commissioned by the Japanese Government shortly before that country entered into… Continue reading Get unlimited digital…

For Los párajos perdidos: the South American Project, lutenist, harpist and director of early music band L’Arpeggiata Pluhar takes as her starting point two ideas: that unlike their modern European equivalents, Latin American plucked instruments differ little from their common Baroque ancestors; and that South American dances and songs still exhibit rhythmic and harmonic structures that would have been recognisable to a Baroque musician. Pluhar thus combines a period ensemble of lutes, harps, guitars, cornett, double bass and percussion with a smaller group comprising instruments still played in Latin America such as the cuatro, charango, arpa llanera and maracas. Her vocalists include classical singers Philippe Jaroussky, Luciana Mancini and Raquel Andueza, as well as Italian folk singer and researcher Lucilla Galeazzi and the extraordinary singer and ballet dancer Vincenzo Capezzuto. Despite their different performing traditions, all show the same remarkable ability to really loosen up and go with the often sensual, sometimes totally wild rhythms in these traditional and contemporary zambas, golpes, polcas, joropos and boleros from Latin America. Yes, there’s very little “early music” as such – though there is an arrangement of Soler’s famous Fandago that will really knock your socks off. What you do get… Continue reading…

The “sonic spectacular” is back, if Paul McCreesh has his way. The veteran of so many wonderful early music extravaganzas has now parted amicably with Deutsche Grammophon after a 15-year relationship. The next phase of his artistic endeavour will see him set his own artistic agenda, underpinned by his fascination with large-scale works and historically informed performance values. The first fruits of this new phase are truly mindblowing. In 2010 McCreesh assembled some 400 players and singers in Wrocław, Poland to record the Berlioz Requiem. Meticulously following the composer’s directions which call for, amongst other things, a chorus of at least 200, 16 timpani, 18 double basses and four additional brass groups, McCreesh has produced a recording of jaw-dropping power and sublime beauty. While the thunderous, apocalyptic vision of the Tuba mirum is absolutely awe-inspiring, much of the work is more intimate in scope, and it is in these sections that we see the composer’s mastery of musical colour. Robert Murray might not be the most distinguished tenor to have sung the solo in the Sanctus, but at least he respects its rapt, devotional character. Mary Magdalene Church, Wrocław provides an excellent venue for… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access…

Comprising both smaller-scale works as well as three sonatas, this generous collection shows the versatility and mastery of Paul Lewis in Schubert’s piano music. While the Impromptus D899 are among Schubert’s best-known instrumental works, Lewis allows us to hear them as if for the first time. Each is carefully shaped and interesting details are pointed out along the way, without ever losing sense of the melodic and dramatic arc of the whole. Full of references to Schubert’s song style, the late, lesser-known Klavierstücke D946 are ultimately valedictory in tone and Lewis gives them a marvelous rendition. Less easy for some to enjoy are the sonatas, with their emphasis on thematic development at the expense of structure. Lewis’s strong characterisation of successive ideas together with an uncanny sense of musical perspective allows him to guide the listener convincingly through Schubert’s musical arguments. In particular we can delight in the variety of moods Lewis creates in the scherzo of the D-Major Sonata D850 and the laconic humour he brings to its finale. By contrast, the opening of the G-Major Sonata D894 is invested with an admirable quiet devotion. The unfinished sonata Reliquie D840 seems a strange work… Continue reading Get unlimited digital…

Whatever you do when you listen to Nigel Kennedy’s The Four Elements, don’t expect anything like The Four Seasons… The British violinist is known, firstly, for his visceral performances of Vivaldi’s four most famous concertos and, secondly, for his rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, symbolised by his very non-classical hairdo. Kennedy’s own take on “The Four Somethings” idea melds these two facets of his personality. Writing for instruments more commonly encountered in pop or rock, Kennedy has composed four pieces entitled Air, Earth, Fire, Water – plus an overture and a finale. It’s just like Vivaldi – but it rocks. At least, that’s the idea. In reality, The Four Elements is a rambling work not quite interesting enough for the classical genre, nor punchy enough to succeed as popular music. Vivaldi fans will be turned off as soon as the electric bass and drums thud into motion in the overture; while the veneer of classical nerdiness will turn off mainstream listeners (despite the trip-hop beats in Air and a rap solo from Kennedy in Earth). The playing is top-notch throughout, and the instrumental writing is quite accomplished – but the flaw of Kennedy’s work is… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access…

Schoenberg’s admiration for Mahler extended to founding an Association for Private Musical Performances to revive Viennese musical life after WWI. They could rarely afford a full orchestra so relied on chamber music reductions. In the case of The Song of the Earth, Schoenberg completed only most of the first song then delegated Webern to the task, by which time the Association was bankrupt. The real hero is Rainer Riehn, who completed the sketch in the 1980s based on Schoenberg’s orchestration. “Mahler arr Riehn” doesn’t have quite the cachet of “Mahler arr Schoenberg”, so you can imagine the push to overstate the latter’s involvement. Nonetheless, the arrangement is a credit to Riehn and this CD is also a credit to Douglas Boyd and his ensemble and singers. The Song of the Earth in any form represents Mahler’s art at its most distilled and offers a tantalising glimpse – as do the Ninth and Tenth symphonies – into how his music would have developed had he lived longer. Even the full orchestral version has many chamber-like textures and it’s anyone’s guess how these two singers would have fared in the more heavily scored passages (Christa Ludwig and Fritz Wunderlich… Continue reading Get…

Walton’s First is one of the most outstanding symphonies of the 20th century, the turbulent energies of which are apparently the result of the composer’s failing relationship with one Imma von Doernberg. The exultant final movement burst out after a fresh encounter with one Alice Wimborne. Whatever the inspiration, it stands with the Elgar symphonies at the peak of English orchestral composition. A pity such passion had not fired the Second Symphony; compare the ravishing slow movement of the First with that of the Second… The latter seems almost an afterthought. Premiered in 1957, the Second Symphony fell afoul of the “toot, whistle, plunk and boom” school of music that held contemporary classical music to ransom for the following 40 years. We now know better and the symphony can be seen for what it is: an excellent if minor work. It is drier and less moving than the First, stylistically at one with many great 20th-century composers such as William Schuman, Sibelius and Roy Harris. Never at fault is Walton’s brilliant orchestration. These are excellent performances and good value for money. The finest Walton First is still the 1967 recording with the LSO under André Previn on… Continue reading Get…

David Garrett was a gifted young violinist who performed as soloist with the London Philharmonic at the age of ten. He “crossed over” a few years ago to record a series of song-based albums, and never has that act seemed more like crossing to the dark side. It began with the rather jejune Free (2007), a bouquet of tunes by Morricone, Bernstein and Bizet, but reaches an apotheosis of awful with Rock Symphonies – Garrett joined by an orchestra and heavy metal band. The violinist wields his bow like a machete, castrating composers of talent from Beethoven (first mvt of Fifth Symphony) to Kurt Cobain (Smells Like Teen Spirit). What makes it especially heinous is that Garrett’s playing isn’t even that refined, despite the Juilliard training. He can “shred” all right, but he doesn’t have the variety of phrasing to make rock music sound natural on the violin; he’s out of tune in Guns and Roses’ November Rain; and his solos seem conscribed to the pentatonic scale. It’s almost like Garrett is the André Rieu of rock – the schmaltz king of metal. Bad taste release of the year. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already…

Sarah Connolly spins 20th-century English songs into gold in this new recital, the latest in a string of excellent solo discs from the English mezzo. It’s hard to believe that just seven years ago, Connolly was obliged to self-fund her first solo album – she’s a natural in the recording studio, singing with irresistible warmth and unfailing elegance. On the operatic stage, where many of her signature roles put her in breeches, Connolly can swagger with the best of them; in the quieter and more intimate world of art song, she’s just as vivid but in a very different way. English art songs are prone, rightly or wrongly, to being viewed as twee or irretrievably stuffy. Not so in Connolly’s care. Even the most familiar folk tune – Britten’s arrangement of O Waly Waly for example – is sung with hushed intensity, and Connolly handles lyrics about flowers and fields with as much sincerity as she does darker fare, such as Gurney’s stark By a Bierside.  Her diction and phrasing are so exemplary that one ceases to notice them and is simply caught up in the finely wrought world of each song, be it a tale of lost… Continue reading Get unlimited digital…

Mikhail Pletnev once recorded a sensational piano transcription of the Nutcracker suite. His traversal of the entire ballet isn’t quite in that class. Tchaikovsky’s score has more glamour, charm and sheer magic than almost any other music, ballet or otherwise. I suppose its nearest rival would be his own Sleeping Beauty. I’ve never really heard a bad Nutcracker but I doubt this reading surpasses the two wonderful Doratis or my own favourite: André Previn with the LSO (EMI). It’s unfortunate Ondine couldn’t have filled the first CD and found something else to fill the second, as both have less than 50 minutes of playing time.  Sometimes the orchestra sounds rather flatly recorded, especially the brass. The traditional highlights, such as the Waltz of the Flowers and the dancing snowflakes, remain somewhat earthbound. The pistol shot at the start of the mouse battle sounds like a popgun and the castanets in the Spanish dance are poorly captured: they’re barely there. I always judge the performance by the Arabian dance – if the sinuous sensuality is there, the rest will usually take care of itself. Well, it’s not… Look, there’s nothing catastrophically wrong with this version, but… Continue reading Get unlimited digital…

The six Bach Cello Suites are the cornerstone of the cello repertory. They make for ultimate judgement, able to intimidate and awe player and listener alike. Pablo Casals discovered them for the modern world and made them his own. Now Michael Goldschlager has put his own stamp on them. There’s no sign of intimidation here. From the first moment, Goldschlager gives us a committed and profoundly thoughtful interpretation of the Suites. The warm acoustic, though fine, does not quite match the deep glow of my favourite recording by Heinrich Schiff, but this is a different reading, with Goldschlager seeming to imbue the music with deep, intense personal emotion. In his thoughtful notes to this 2-CD set, Goldschlager explains that he finds the Suites almost skeletal in outline, believing that if Bach had revisited them they might have been fleshed out with far more embellishment. But it is this very austerity in which he seems to rejoice in performance, an austerity which is, at the same time, the essence of beauty. This is a wonderful reading which can find a place alongside the best and most famous in the catalogue. The performance is notable for its… Continue reading Get unlimited digital…