Ernst Krenek’s resumé reads like a pro forma template of Austro-Germany’s forgotten composers sent into exile by the political climate of the 1930s. Studying with Franz Schreker and a short-lived marriage to Mahler’s daughter Anna ensured a thorough grounding in heady Late Romantic expressionism, dabbling with atonality before embracing Hindemithian democratic craft and making a big splash in 1927 with Jonny Spielt Auf; a key example of Zeitoper. Staged in over 100 European theatres, the pseudo-jazz inflected score and Jonny’s ethnicity would bring fame and notoriety but aroused the ire of the racial purifiers waiting to seize power. Krenek’s adoption of Schoenberg’s serial technique in the 1930s would seal his fate; his opera Karl V would be banned by the Nazis and he would be denounced as a “degenerate” so he decamped to Palm Springs, sheltering in academia for the rest of his life where he produced a steady stream of fine compositions that, apart from occasional performances in rebuilt Germany, were ignored.  His Reisebuch aus den Österreichischen Alpen song cycle of 1929 was a response to the previous year’s 100th anniversary of the death of Schubert. Spurred by a visit to the Alps, it is a revisionist take on…

Joseph Nolan plans to welcome the Queen of Sheba amongst a programme ranging from Bach to Britten.

Newly recovered and recorded, the composer whose life was cut short at the Somme is assuming his rightful place.

Orchestras around the country celebrate the Year of the Rooster as Tan Dun tours Australia.

The Finnish composer shocked many in the establishment when he embraced a popular mysticism with his musical angels.

The critics have spoken and the results are in. Here are Limelight’s top recordings from 2016.

One of Herbert Howells’ many settings of the Anglican act of worship is treated as reverently as it deserves. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The Trinity Choir director reveals his deep connection to the music of Herbert Howells. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

A fitting tribute to one of the 20th century’s musical giants.

If this well produced disc is anything to go by, Krzysztof Penderecki, the grandfather of Polish music, remains a powerful expressive force, both as composer and conductor. Spanning nearly 60 years of compositional endeavour, the works display Penderecki’s prowess in the field of large-scale religious works. His 2014 Dies Illa, written to commemorate the victims of World War I on the centenary of its outbreak, is a vivid soundscape that takes inspiration from Verdi’s Requiem. The Warsaw forces perform expertly and soloists (soprano Johanna Rusanen, mezzo  Agnieszka Rehlis and bass Nikolay Didenko) deliver texts with empathy and commitment. Two 1997 commissions demonstrate Penderecki’s ability to bring his keen appreciation of history to bear on works for grand occasions. Hymn to St. Daniil for the 850th anniversary of the foundation of Moscow, has a strong flavour of Orthodox chant, culminating with brass and bells. Hymn to St Adalbert for the millennium of the city of Gdan´sk grows into a fervent and exultant outpouring of praise. Psalms of David from 1958 won the composer several prizes that helped establish his international reputation. A fascinating blend of avant-garde and traditional, they have a likeable freshness and originality that has not dimmed in the…

In songwriting terms, Reger remains a one-hit wonder: his Mariä Wiegenlied, but heaven help anyone seeking the rest of his vast Lieder output. Now Hyperion has come to the rescue,  but even they supply a mere 33 of the nearly 300 songs which Reger left. Repeatedly discernible in this selection dominated by miniatures is the composer’s tendency to resort to restless chromaticism in songs that begin as folk-like, almost drawing-room productions. No wonder recitalists have shied away. Far easier to master a song that stays in the same mood throughout, rather than switching within seconds from Schubertian quasi-naivety to Hugo-Wolf-style anguish. Significantly, Reger preferred minor poets: no Goethe, Schiller or Heine here. Occasionally Reger uses a verse familiar from Strauss: Mackay’s Morgen!, which Reger makes almost indistinguishable from a Wagnerian dusk. But other Reger settings show him in a much better light and they deserve more frequent airings. This reviewer was particularly taken by the martial Zwischen zwei Nächten, the impressionistic Aeolsharfe (like Debussy to German words), and above all the deliberately antiquarian In einem Rosengärtelein. Sophie Bevan has a big timbre which nevertheless encompasses considerable delicacy when needed. Malcolm Martineau is perfectly attuned to Reger’s unrelenting demands. Engineering and…

The most recent release by The Australian Voices is their first with current director Gordon Hamilton at the helm. As a composer, Hamilton is no stranger to eclecticism, and Reverie offers works that draw on classical, jazz and popular styles, with texts and subjects not limited to war, nonsense and political speech. The most classical offering is Hamilton’s arrangement of Australian-British composer and soldier Frederick Septimus Kelly’s Elegy – In Memoriam Rupert Brooke. It complements other reflective works by Hamilton on the disk, including a sombre meditation on the ANZAC experience, Dark Hour and the radiant, existentialist Who Are We? Graham Lack’s Reverie of Bone, with percussion by Claire Edwardes, dwells in a similar space. At odds with these more sober offerings are groove-driven works, like Lisa Young’s Misra Chappu and James Morrison’s Underwater Basket Weaving, a cute bluesy work featuring Morrison himself on trumpet. But top reason to own this disc is the diptych of politically themed works by Robert Davidson: Total Political Correctness, a musicalisation of the Trump-Kelly debate, and the viral internet sensation, Not Now, Not Ever! – Davidson’s reworking of Julia Gillard’s speech against misogyny. Hamilton says the works each “embrace… the banal in equal measure…