There seems to be no end to the talents of Iestyn Davies. A thoroughly modern countertenor, Davies is at home in all sorts of venues, whether they be churches, concert halls, opera houses, recording studios or theatres, and wherever he goes he impresses audiences with both the breadth and the quality of his performances. So it is only natural that such a talented performer should want to turn his hand to that greatest of composers, JS Bach. The only problem is, as Richard Wigmore points out in his illuminating notes, “with countertenors confined to English cathedral choirs and castrati to the opera house, ‘alto’ for Bach meant a teenaged boy on the cusp of adolescence.” While from the dual standpoints of vocal technique and timbre, this prospect might have dampened the composer’s enthusiasm for alto solos, particularly in the cantatas, we are fortunate to have Cantata 54 from the Weimar period, Widerstehe doch der Sünde, which Wigmore believes would have been written for a particularly gifted boy alto. Cast in three movements, this musical admonition against sin and Satan is a colourful and expressive work, but Davies and Arcangelo take an intimate and controlled approach, despite all the talk of…

Elise McCann’s album Dahlesque, released by ABC Music, features the songs from her new cabaret show of the same name, which premiered to rave reviews at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Dahlesque comprises a selection of music inspired by the gloriously irreverent, darkly funny stories of children’s author Roald Dahl including numbers from the film Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and the musicals Matilda The Musical, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and James and the Giant Peach. It’s a clever idea, and spins off the fact that McCann recently played Miss Honey in the Australian production of Matilda The Musical, winning both a Sydney Theatre Award and a Helpmann Award for her touching portrayal. The warmth and glow that McCann has as a stage performer shines through on the album. She has a lovely pure, true voice with a honeyed tone in her middle register, an effortless belt, and top notes that send ripples down the spine. It’s also a voice with real character. Her diction is impeccable and she connects with the lyric, which makes her a great storyteller in song – altogether a consummate musical theatre voice. Accompanied here by a nine-piece band under the musical direction of…

We know Sullivan primarily for the brilliant music he wrote for the equally brilliant comic plays of WS Gilbert. Many will also know some of his excellent concert music. The songs are a different matter, although many are attractive and well written,  they fall outside the popular Lieder repertoire inhabited by Schubert and his lot, not always reaching the heights attained by those German composers with which they have a cultural affinity. Nonetheless they are certainly worthy of our attention and so Chandos has come to the rescue with 46 of them. For his texts Sullivan drew widely. He drew from Shakespeare, O Mistress Mine and The Willow Song. The song cycle The Window by Tennyson and from Robert Burns the delicately felt Mary Morrison. In the main the music is often what you would expect, lightly inspired Victoriana. For example, the Arabian Love Song, with its mysterious piano ripples between verses is intriguing and the ballad Once Again undoubtedly had female hearts fluttering in many a drawing room. Sweethearts is a melodramatic duet from the composer’s old collaborator, Gilbert. It is set as a waltz and goes with an engaging swing. Familiar to Savoyards will be the reworking of…

Way back last century (in 1986 to be precise) the choir of King’s College, Cambridge under Stephen Cleobury produced a recording of choral pieces by Bax and Finzi. At a time when fascination with ‘early music’ was at its height, this rather unfashionable choice of repertory was a revelation; its expansive text-setting and lush harmonies were a reminder of a then rather neglected corner of choral music, full of guilty but well-wrought pleasures. Some 30 years on, choirs are thankfully less narrow in their choices. James O’Donnell and his Westminster Abbey forces have delivered a more than worthy successor to that disc. O’Donnell lavishes much care on Finzi’s masterly anthem, Lo the Full, Final Sacrifice; its long, contrasting paragraphs full of beautiful singing, whether the exultant “Lo, the bread of life” or the meditative “soft, self-wounding Pelican” or the beguiling Amen. Careful attention to text mirrors Finzi’s own care in this regard. God is Gone Up is dispatched with appropriate élan and the Magnificat radiates unalloyed joy. Three smaller Finzi anthems confirm his appeal. Bax is represented by contrasting carols, I Sing of a Maiden and This Worldes Joie – the first carefree and the second careworn. Given the considerable…

Agnew and Les Arts top off their fine Monteverdi series.

The US tenor Timothy Fallon seems poised on the cusp of fame, judging from the debut release with his regular recital partner the Israeli-South African pianist Ammiel Bushakevitz. The duo appear regularly at London’s Wigmore Hall, winning the 2013 Wigmore Hall/Kohn Foundation International Song Competition. Fallon is also making a name in Europe where he appears regularly with Oper Leipzig and he is heard on a couple of Pentatone’s Wagner series under Marek Janowski. Fine diction and a lovely clear higher register even across all the dynamics, from a lovely sotto voce to full-blooded fortissimos, are qualities he brings to this BIS recording of 15 songs by Franz Liszt. His expressive voice is nimble and nuanced and he pays great attention to the text, teasing out the subtle colours and shades while Bushakevitz’s sensitive piano keeps momentum going. They work seamlessly together and there is plenty of scope for dramatic stretch, with the standout Drei Lieder aus Schillers Wilhelm Tell and the three Petrarch sonnet settings both offering plenty of emotional shifts and experimental harmonies. The disc covers 40 years of Liszt’s output and takes in four languages, with settings of Victor Hugo and Tennyson also on the programme. This…

The French conductor, whose Daphnis is our Recording of the Month, explains how symphonic music serves the dance. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Ravel called his glittering score to Daphnis et Chloé a ‘Symphonie choreographique’: essentially a ‘symphony with dance’, the perfect description for a work of such majesty, where the music really is centre-stage. The score is usually segmented into three suites for concert performance, making a hearing of the full version all too rare a treat. Thankfully François-Xavier Roth with period instrument orchestra Les Siècles and Ensemble Aedes deliver the full ballet on this recent release with Harmonia Mundi, with the most stunning results. The exact date of inception of Daphnis et Chloé is somewhat disputed, but the original commission came from Diaghilev, for the prestigious Ballets Russes. The composition was fraught with challenges, mainly due to creative differences between Ravel and the choreographer, Michel Fokine. After numerous revisions and a delayed premiere, the ballet finally opened in June 1912, almost a year before Parisian audiences would be scandalised by the riot over Stravinsky’s vicious Rite. Underscoring the ancient Greek tale of a pastoral romance between a shepherd and shepherdess, Ravel’s music is languorous and enchanting, shimmering with lush orchestral colour, and worlds away from Stravinsky’s pulsating nightmare. The beginning and third part are mostly relaxed, dreamy episodes, framing the dramatic…

Dustyesky, who focus on Russian songs and drinking vodka, are making headlines on the other side of the world.

For over a century composers have been drawn to Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister and the enigmatic songs of the waif-like Mignon. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The English conductor gives his take on whether the French composer was rascal, monk, or both.

How do you take your Poulenc? I only ask because, conveniently, The Sixteen have recorded a lot of the repertoire on their latest disc before, and their thinking has changed dramatically in the 30-year gap. The contrast between the 1990 Figure Humaine (Virgin Classics, now Erato 5624312) and the newly released Francis Poulenc: Choral Music (CORO) is striking – neither an improvement nor the reverse, simply two very different approaches to the composer’s sacred music. Poulenc’s journey to faith was a swift and dramatic one. The turning point is usually placed in 1936, when two separate events together propelled the composer into a new state of mind. The sudden and violent death of his friend, composer Pierre-Octave Ferroud, in a car accident prompted a visit to the small chapel at Rocamadour, where a mystical experience restored the Catholicism of his childhood. He immediately began work on a sacred piece – the Litanies à la Vierge Noir – taking his first steps in a genre that would become a constant throughout his life. The sound-world of Figure Humaine is one of gauzy, glossy beauty – a Mannerist vision of a heaven that’s all soft-focus loveliness and elegance. These are performances that…