The Australian Financial Review’s Political Editor is also a member of Canberra Choral Society’s alto naughty corner. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

From diva rivalries to indecent acts in toilets, a new recording project looks at those who rose and those who fell. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The Australian pianist feels our traditional tertiary musical education system needs a change of emphasis. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

★★★★☆ Brett Weymark’s foam-flecked Vaughan Williams conquers the high seas. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Composer Lyle Chan explains how he won the blessing of the 96-year-old whose first crush was Benjamin Britten. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

While the Australian composer doesn’t identify as Christian, for him, the mass is much more than worn out ritual. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

I have been aware of Belgian soprano Sophie Karthäuser’s fine work in early repertoire for some years now but somehow missed her first release on Harmonia Mundi of Poulenc, which Andrew Aronowicz praised in these pages back in 2014; on hearing this latest delight I shall eagerly hunt out the former. Wolf has a reputation as a tough nut to crack for most listeners; his melodic style is a world away from Schubert, with wild, chromatic harmonies of Wagnerian sensuality, although naive simplicity sometimes pops up unexpectedly and he mostly avoided repetitive strophic form so that each setting is a miniature dramatic scene. His accompaniments, often carrying a bold subtext, can sometimes seem more inspired than the vocal line with evocative scene-painting and extended epilogues. In the wrong hands those accompaniments can sometimes turn turgid (like Schumann on acid) but no concerns here; Eugene Asti’s work is breathtakingly beautiful, perfectly graded and balanced – the recording is stunningly clear and present, every pellucid touch audible.  As for the singing – I was bowled over. While expecting the clarity and tonal beauty of such a fine Mozart exponent I was surprised by the dramatic range on offer. The top of the…

Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera’s music is neatly divided into three styles: nationalist folk (or Gaucho); ‘subjective’ nationalism influenced by Stravinsky, and Neoexpressionism, which is infused with Serialism. His vocal pieces reflect those phases. Uruguayan Gisèle Ben-Dor conducts the Santa Barbara Symphony with superb vocalists. Ginastera’s five popular Agentinian songs are here sung delightfully by Puerto Rican soprano Ana Marìa Martìnez. They have a touch of Cantaloube’s Songs of the Auvergne about them, especially the much-loved lullaby Arroro which Ben-Dor, like most South American mothers, sang to her children. Argentinian diva Virginia Tola features in the other two works on this disc. She’s alongside Plácido Domingo for two excerpts from Ginastera’s opera Don Rodrigo. Domingo reprises his role from his 1960s hit at New York City Opera, which was overseen by the composer. Challenging for both singer and listener, Domingo’s radiance and energy here seem undimmed by age. Listen out for The Miracle scene when all the bells of Spain ring out unaided by human intervention in a serialism-meets-Mussorgsky showstopper.  Tola makes superb work of the cantata Milena, based on Franz Kafka’s letters to his lover. This is an interesting tribute to the composer, beautifully produced and vibrantly performed by all.

The name of Henry du Mont has rested in the shadow cast by those giants of the French Baroque, Lully and Rameau, yet this ‘foreign’ composer (born near Liège in 1610) rose to the heights, directing Louis XIV’s chapel from 1663 to 1683.  Inspired by the Italian-style encountered in his Flemish upbringing, du Mont wrote numerous petits motets for two or three voices with instrumental parts and was one of the first to introduce basso continuo into French music. His other great contribution was to develop the grand motet, which pitted a petit choeur of soloists against a grand choeur and interleaved instrumental episodes in which many of the king’s famous string players featured.  Sébastien Daucé and Ensemble Correspondances give polished and empathetic performances of both forms of motets. Smaller works such as the heartfelt Sub Ombra Noctis Profundae allow solo voices, like that of bass, Nicolas Brooymans to display emotional range while larger works, in particular O Mysterium and Super Flumina Babylonis, brilliantly evoke the splendour of Louis’ court with voluptuous textures and elegant turns of musical phrase. Daucé’s forces communicate with energy, passion and precision. Engineering and presentation are of Harmonia Mundi’s usual high standard.

Every cloud, they say, has a silver lining. In the dark days of World War II, Cambridge was a bleak place; emptied of students and the famous windows of King’s College Chapel put in storage. Attempts were made to keep up appearances. Services in college chapels were more or less maintained, despite a dearth of adult male singers and college organists being called up. A middle-aged Herbert Howells was called upon to deputise at St. John’s College. Having weathered the death of his young son from meningitis and finding his style of music increasingly unfashionable, Howells found solace in university life. Amongst the supportive colleagues he found at Cambridge was the Dean of King’s, Eric Milner-White. He suggested that Howells should write some settings of the canticles for the college chapel. Taking up the challenge reinvigorated Howells’s composing career and gave Anglicans some of their most beloved 20th-century music. Howells eventually completed his music for King’s, setting all three choral services: Matins, Holy Communion and Evensong under the college’s Latin name.  One of the many advantages of this new recording is having all three services on the one disc. The evening canticles have been recorded countless times, but the other…

The conductor explains why A Sea Symphony launches his soul on a passage to choral heaven. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

In my youth, a popular party piece was to haul out a recording made by New York socialite Florence Foster Jenkins and all fall about laughing as we listened to her murder The Queen of the Night. It was so innocently bad. It took great skill, imagination and sympathy to bring her story to the screen, for where is the modern audience for a truly bad opera singer from the 1940s?  Enter director Stephen Frears. He has produced a remarkable film, drawing on the brilliance of Meryl Streep as Jenkins, Hugh Grant as her husband (one of his best performances) and a wry, comic turn from Simon Helberg (of Big Bang fame) as Madam’s hapless pianist. The film is beautifully written and produced, an absolute delight. Frears makes it convincing, including showing how Jenkin’s devoted husband shielded her from the truth of her foolishness.  Meryl Streep sings all the Jenkins extracts, and it is a tribute to her taste and skill that she doesn’t make it sound like a poor take-off as she reproduces Jenkins’ famously bad singing. It’s a star turn, especially as it takes great skill to sing badly, convincingly. Alexandre Desplat provides a small amount of original…