Anyone familiar with Schubert’s murderous Die Nonne (The Nun) or Mendelssohn’s frenzied Hexenlied will know the extremes to which a 19th-century composer might go in order to send shivers up the collective spines of his audience with a ghoulish musical yarn. But if an hour of such fare fills you with trepidation, fear not, for with Canadian baritone Gerald Finley and pianist Julius Drake you will be in very safe hands. This is a brilliantly constructed program of tales told through poetry and music, ranging from blockbusters like Erlkönig, a most deeply felt Lost Chord and ending with a razor-sharp Cole Porter ballad about a social-climbing oyster who goes down the wrong way with inevitable results. Finley is clearly a singer at the very top of his game – the voice always used with intelligence; full, resonant and flexible. I would be hard pressed to think of a rival today who could finesse these songs with such grace, nuance and sheer vocal acting. Drake is in his element as well, breathing fire or exuding pathos in turn.  Standouts include a hypnotic rendition of Edward, Loewe’s tale of patricide revealed, as well as a chilling Der Feuerreiter – Wolf’s ballad of… Continue reading Get unlimited…

In his day Charles Gounod was seen as a leading composer of religious music, turning out a large number of works in his productive lifetime (20 masses and four requiems, for a start). We remember him as the composer of Faust, once the world’s most famous and popular opera. He is less well-known for a rather weak-kneed version of Roméo et Juliette, complete with happy ending. If, as an opera composer, Gounod has faded, on the evidence contained in this excellent CD his religious music warrants reappraisal, even though, with its faint perfumes of a bygone age, it might seem more elusive to ears attuned to Poulenc and Fauré. This is especially true of the Requiem, though the Messe Chorale is made of sterner stuff and is a fine work. In an 1892 letter to a colleague, Gounod writes: “It is time for the banner of liturgical Art to replace in our churches that of profane cantilena, and for musical practices to proscribe all the mush of the Romance and all the sweets of piety which have for too long sickened our stomachs”. It is possible that César Frank’s 1872 setting of Panis angelicus was just the sort of soupy church music… Continue reading…

Wigmore Hall continues to share its bounties with this release, recorded late last year, of Christopher Maltman in Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin. Live recordings can be uneven affairs, but Maltman’s performance captures all the excitement of the concert hall and few of its drawbacks – his interpretation is cohesive, his voice vividly caught and unwaveringly fine, and the only audience noise of note is the deservedly vociferous ovation at the end. If anything, the live setting has caught a depth of spontaneous emotion which a studio might have dulled. Maltman’s light, silken baritone is arresting from the outset, in a Das Wandern of breathless, barely contained emotion. He maintains the first half of the cycle at a slow burn, singing so gently, and with such delicate top notes, that the eventual outburst of Mein! comes as a genuine and jarring shock. The sweet tone of those early songs is barely detectable in the acerbic anger of Der Jäger, and when it returns in Eifersucht und Stolz, seems to mock its own timidity. The young man Maltman portrays is a sensitive soul in turmoil, prone to explosive rage and tears, but whose delusions (and depressions) are more naïve than pathological…. Continue reading Get unlimited…

Rachmaninov’s four piano concertos are a classic example of the excellent being the enemy of the merely very good. When, in 1917, he came to revise his first youthful concerto (from 1891), the Second and Third Concertos had firmly ensconced themselves in the repertoire and in the affections of the public. The Fourth Concerto, composed in 1926, never had a chance: it had none of the fizz of Gershwin in its jazz-influenced passages and the main theme of its slow movement has a bizarre and unfortunate resemblance to Three blind mice! There are traces of the dreamy, sentimental, later Rachmaninov in both these works – and Simon Trpceski is excellent throughout – but they are either embryonic or truncated. In the last movement of the First, just as you think they’re about to burst into the BIG tune, the pianist scuttles off in a helter-skelter passage of presto fingerwork. There is real chemistry between Trpceski and Petrenko here, and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic are on fire. I loved the brass attack in the opening chords of the First Concerto. Both orchestra and soloist are highly affecting in its slow movement.  I’ve left little room for… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from…

For many, Daniel Barenboim is thought of primarily as a conductor today. But this album, recorded in Warsaw only last year, sees him back at the piano in triumphant form. This live recital spans a huge range of Chopin’s works, from his Fantasia in F minor to the Nocturne in B-flat major; the Sonata in B-flat minor, through Barcarolles, Waltzes, the Berceuse in D-flat major, and the resounding Polonaise in A flat major. It’s an all-encompassing tribute marking the 2010 bicentenary of Chopin’s birth. There are many idiosyncrasies in Barenboim’s reading – sometimes a playfulness with tempi and weight that make the listener hear a piece in a completely new way, or a thoughtful new interpretation of a phrase or interval. Only once, in what seems a wilful account of the martial Polonaise in A-flat major, does the interpretation seem at odds with the work – or at least, with the interpretations we are most familiar with. The recording reaffirms his position as one of the great pianists of the latter part of the 20th century and it is great to see his keyboard career extended into the new century in such a manner. This is a live… Continue reading…

The hour was late, my day had been hellish, the decanter beckoned. Perhaps just a wee dram and the first movement. A few moments in and the Glenfiddich was forgotten. This is one of the greatest Mahler recordings and performances I’ve ever heard. The illustrious producer Walter Legge once opined that a conductor should build like a Moghul emperor and finish like a jeweller, and this is one of the elements which create the magic here: Jansons never loses sight of the gigantic scale of this symphony, while acknowledging and refining every detail. Tempos are generally slow and the overall timing makes this one of the slowest Mahler Thirds available. No matter! The playing of the Concertgebouw is not just beyond reproach – it’s beyond belief. The wilder sections of the first movement may lack the manic abandon of Bernstein, but the interchanges between the brass and woodwind are just one instance of the sensitivity and imagination that suffuse this account. Jansons’ rubato in the dreamy second movement is just as impressive and the offstage post horn solo in the third is equally magical. Bernarda Fink is beautifully poised in the fourth and fifth movements. The finale is often… Continue reading Get unlimited digital…

York Bowen was renowned during his lifetime (1884-1961) as a virtuoso pianist while as a composer he was dubbed, rightly or wrongly, “the English Rachmaninov”. Saint-Saëns, no less, was an admirer. The bulk of Bowen’s First Symphony was composed when he was 18. If it were a person, I imagine it would be a genial, ruddy-cheeked countryman eager to buy you a pint. The orchestration is delightful and full of subtle colouring and themes with convincing development. The entire three-movement work has a charming alfresco quality. I was bemused to read one contemporary review which condescendingly described it as full of “frolicsome innocence”. How such precocious talent could be described as innocent is beyond me. The Second Symphony of 1909 is more ambitious and substantial. Bowen’s inventiveness never falters over the entire duration of almost 45 minutes. The first two movements are long-spanned but impressively cohesive, completely avoiding the episodic structure of so many 20th century English symphonies. The scherzo is an absolute charmer: a cross between Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn, begging to be described as “gossamer”. Bowen clearly had no truck with the finale-itis (the qualitative fault line between the first three movements and the last,… Continue reading Get unlimited…

This is some of the most wonderful piano playing I’ve ever heard. Hamelin’s dazzling bravura and technical mastery can almost be taken for granted, but not the discreet nonchalance with which he dispatches even the most challenging passages. The Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude from the Harmonies poétiques et religieuses is spellbindingly beautiful. Hamelin makes this extended piece sound arrestingly modern and radiantly dramatises the bewildering duality of Liszt’s life between the spiritual and the sensual, providing a serene resolution. Or does he? In Venezia e Napoli, the contrast in the two gondoliers’ songs could not be greater. In the first, Hamelin produces exquisitely pellucid effects and in the second, based on a theme from Rossini’s Otello, a much darker sonority. The B-minor Sonata is magnificent, from the first menacing gesture to the pauses (or foreboding silences) in the descending scale, which seem like question marks. In terms of mood, Hamelin never puts a foot wrong. If ever there were a musical autobiography made in sound, this is it. In intellectual, emotional and technical terms, this is a CD to cherish. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Mixing opera and pop tracks on disc is a fraught business, so Australia’s Ten Tenors have cut the Gordian Knot. Disc one contains covers of songs such as Wind of Change, Hallelujah and Bohemian Rhapsody, while the opera is relegated to disc two – Fauré’s Pie Jesu, the Anvil Chorus and the inevitable Nessun Dorma arranged for ten tenors and a busload of strings. Ignoring the cheese factor, the ten singers give a powerhouse, pitch-perfect performance on this disc, mustering far more passion and verve than you might expect. Popera fans rejoice. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Bach’s 30 variations on an original theme, BWV 988, constitute a challenging monument of the keyboard literature. This work bookended the recording career of Glenn Gould. The eccentric Canadian taped a youthful, dazzling performance in 1955, and a more deeply contemplative one in 1981, just prior to his untimely death. The variety of contemporary styles Bach drew on allows performers differing but equally legitimate approaches. Into this mix, we must add the piano-versus-harpsichord question (personally, I love Bach on the piano). This disc by American pianist Nicholas Angelich is a winner. As there is no biography with it, let me fill in the gaps: born in 1970, Angelich studied in Paris with Loriod, Béroff and Ciccolini, and has previously recorded Brahms for this label. He uses every expressive device at his disposal. He decorates the theme heavily, and also the French variations in compound time, yet he varies his touch to make an Italian epidosde like the rapid No 5 less relentless. He is subtle in the canonic variations, allowing the slower ones to sing like Chopin. In this way his performance recalls the wonderful Telarc recording by Simone Dinnerstein.  Some pianists (like Gould in 1981) play the main theme… Continue reading Get unlimited…

Steve Reich’s highly anticipated September 11 lament comes ten years after the terrorist attacks and the release itself was not without controversy (note the revised album artwork). His account is everything we have come to expect from America’s greatest minimalist, and therein lies the problem. WTC 9/11 serves as a bookend to the Kronos Quartet’s 1988 collaboration with the composer, Different Trains: a profound work in which the strings echo the sampled speech of Holocaust survivors. Reich has rehashed the technique, this time with the voices of air traffic controllers and firemen who were among the first to grasp the magnitude of the American tragedy. What fails to move me is the mimicry, so poignant in Different Trains but cumbersome and almost tasteless here. Redeeming melodic interest comes in a reflective section of Hebrew Psalms, sung by Jews who prayed for the dead on the scene. Just shy of 16 minutes long, WTC 9/11 is as immediately terse and engaging as, say, Penderecki’s Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima. Reich’s structure and economy of means are masterful, but with the entire disc running to only 36 minutes I feel short-changed, despite the inclusion… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from…

The Latitude 37 trio has added its refined voice to Australia’s small but vibrant early music community, with a debut release that adheres to much the same winning formula as the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra’s Baroque Tapas, also featuring Laura Vaughan. One senses the ensemble’s inventiveness as a whole as well as the personalities of the players and their guests. Their rapport is most rewarding in Salaverde’s Canzon a due, where Julia Fredersdorff’s sweet-toned Baroque violin interlaces with the drier gamba passages, sensitively underscored by Donald Nicolson on chamber organ. The overall selection is perhaps more solemn than that of Tapas, as in the opening regal procession of Diego Ortiz’s Passamezzo antico and two pieces by Caccini and Palestrina, with Siobhán Stagg’s light soprano beaming through clouds. Some tracks replace gamba with the lirone, an Italian continuo instrument with a unique, gossamer sheen to its plaintive chords.  There’s plenty to liven up proceedings: Guy du Blêt’s varied percussion is essential to the success of the album in exuberant spagnoletta dance rhythms and a rustic Kapsberger passacaglia. Improvised, virtuosic flourishes over ground bass are executed by all players with flair. A small world, but one full of discovery. Continue reading Get unlimited digital…