Hitting play on Grant Foster’s world premiere recordings – When Love Speaks – I am nicely settled and ready to pen my review. What I am not ready for is the raw romance of this solo pianist and composer; to be struck and emotionally swayed by his music in less than five seconds flat. What is this beautiful work? Romance in C Sharp Minor brings us the feel of its title, and holds nothing back – while powerful, it exposes a vulnerability that reaches the heart. Romance in C follows, leading us into a gentler introspection. After its soothing introduction, a pure melody line with just enough harmonic support tells us its story; Foster continues this style through each piece. We hear rises and falls one would expect from Romantic works written more than a century ago. Foster’s music is ambitiously reminiscent of the greats, notably Chopin and Rachmaninov, but with an accessible human touch. I nearly leap out of my seat when I hear the Piano Sonata, which opens with a darkness successfully indicative of its dedication to those lost in war. Elegy is a stirring homage to Sir Robert Helpmann; and Six Preludes, like much of Foster’s work,…

Finnish pianist Paavali Jumpannen’s formidable repertoire includes cycles of Mozart and Beethoven, his Boulez Sonatas are critically acclaimed, and he is a vigorous champion of new music. Jumpannen’s scholarly and voracious approach is reflected in meticulously researched liner notes for this fourth instalment in his cycle of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas. This set covers seven middle-period works: Sonatas 16-18 (Op. 31, from 1802), and 24-27 (Opp. 78, 79, 81a and 90, from 1809-14). These are deeply thoughtful readings, restrained and delicate, less volcanic than is often the case but with absolute technical precision and nuance. This is particularly evident in what the pianist terms the “enigmatic arpeggios” of the Tempest Sonata, which in his hands are more rippling than tempestuous and replete with contemplative pauses. The extraordinary trills of Op. 90 are rendered with high drama and expertly-judged balance between the hands, resulting in a breath-taking performance of this sonata, a precursor of the anguished emotionality that would receive fuller expression in Beethoven’s late works. The recording is rich and present with lovely depth, with a slight tendency to brightness in the upper registers. Listeners interested in these endlessly fascinating sonatas will find much of note in Jumpannen’s interpretations – a…

French pianist Cédric Tiberghien opens the third disc of his Bartók series with the Hungarian composer’s First Piano Sonata. Tiberghien’s rendition is heavy with rubato, giving the first movement a quirky, lurching feel – very different to the driving forward momentum of Claude Helffer or the solid pacing of Alain Planés, who have recorded the work for Harmonia Mundi. But if the rhythm feels wayward, the tone sparkles – Tiberghien wrings as much glitter as he does crunch from the dissonant folk-harmonies, and the recording quality is immaculate. There is a gravitas to the Sostenuto E Pesante and a crisp, dancing energy to the Allegro Molto. Tiberghien’s translucent sound and spacious approach in the Three Hungarian Folk Songs from the Csík District – settings of melodies the composer heard played on a peasant flute – imbues these miniatures with a sense of mystery, while Tiberghien revels in the eccentric characters of the Bagpipers and the lumbering Bear Dance in Bartók’s Sonatina. The lively Three Rondos on Slovak Folk Tunes feel clean and simply drawn compared with the darker, more complex Opus 18 Etudes that follow, before the disc culminates with Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. Pianist François-Frédéric Guy…

It’s fair to say that Dave Malloy’s dazzlingly eclectic musical-cum-opera on a chunk of Tolstoy’s War and Peace divides critics way beyond its losing out at the Tony Awards to the way more mainstream Dear Evan Hansen. The tendency for Malloy’s characters to comment on the action even while taking part in it seems to alienate some, while its resolute refusal to avoid repetition (more on that later) and hit the sweet spot of the big ballad means that listeners are unlikely to come across it on an album of show tunes. A pity, because by essentially setting prose – and most of it Tolstoy’s – Malloy is doing something rather unusual and clever. But don’t despair, this addictive cast album gives listeners the chance to sit back and enjoy a rare and imaginative piece of musical storytelling without the challenge of what is going on in front of their eyes. Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 starts at the point in War and Peace where the beautiful young Countess Natasha Rostova has fallen in love with, and gotten engaged to, the formal and somewhat starchy Prince Andrey Bolkonsky. While Andrey has departed for the war with… Continue reading Get unlimited…

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…

This programme is built around around two substantial Fantasias for piano: the Mozart in C Minor K475, composed in 1785, and the early Fantasie in C by Schumann, written in 1836. Although only 50 years separate them, the two works fall distinctly into the Classical and Romantic periods of European music. They share a free form in common (in spite of the Schumann falling, sonata-like, into three movements), but their differences are fundamental. Mozart’s idea of the fantasy is to be free with keyboard decoration, and to roam through different keys and thematic ideas not dictated by a predetermined structure. Schumann’s idea of fantasy is an emotional one, ranging through those heightened states so beloved of the early Romantics, namely fiery passion and introspective melancholy. Mozart’s Piano Sonata No 14 is also in C Minor: a dark key for the composer (as for Beethoven), so there is an argument that a more Romantic approach is justified. In both works pianist Piotr Anderszewski gives us just that, to generally good effect. He is suitably stormy in the Sonata’s first movement, but I find the slow movement – for all his sensitivity – to be too introverted. He approaches it with eyes…

American cellist and composer Clancy Newman at a recent concert described Dvořák’s Dumky Trio as something you might hear al fresco – three skilled musicians having fun in an informal and spontaneous way and maybe with the hat out. There’s not much of the street corner busk about France’s Trio Wanderer’s reading of the work on their new album, or if there is it’s one of those elegant Parisian ones built by Baron Haussmann. The piece is played with a little too much Gallic sangfroid for this reviewer who prefers a more hectic, Bohemian feel to the slow-fast six-movement work, the last of the four Dvořák wrote and completed shortly before he took up his post in America. There are no such reservations with the impeccable way they handle the other work on the album, the Op. 65 Third Trio which is, on the whole, darker hued and more in the Brahmsian mould. Its uncharacteristically melancholic third movement is thought to be an expression of Dvořák’s grief at the loss of his mother, followed by an Allegro finale which seems to say “OK, let’s get on with life.” This is their 15th release for Harmonia Mundi, and with occasional forays…

These are wonderful performances, beautifully and naturally recorded, showcasing an artist with beguilingly beautiful tone and rock solid technique and intonation. Beethoven’s cello sonatas punctuate his oeuvre and the two early sonatas were trailblazers (Mozart ignored the cello as a solo instrument: even his string quintets featured a second viola) and it was not until the “middle” period A Major work that the structure seems confident. Oddly, that said, even the second last sonata, composed on the cusp of the middle-to-late period, has a slow movement lasting just over three minutes and it’s only in the final sonata that we find a full blown Adagio. Among many features that impressed me here were the mysterious depths plumbed in the sometimes awkward-sounding opening Adagios of the two early works, (especially the darker G Minor), which can seem like mere introductions in the wrong hands. Other structural tripwires successfully negotiated include the way Capuçon and Braley make a seamless transition to the ensuing Allegros after the opening Adagios and their ability to contrast the consecutive fast movements of the first two sonatas. The rapport between cellist and pianist is impressive throughout, with especially brilliant and spontaneous interplay in the Op. 69, whose…

If you’ve seen any Australian period-instrument orchestras you’ve probably seen Tommie Andersson playing the theorbo as part of the continuo. He’s quite an institution by now, having co-founded the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra as well as co-directing Ludovico’s Band. This CD, however, is a recording from the mid-1980s of Andersson performing as part of a guitar/lute duo with Hållbus Totte. What’s particularly unusual, however, is that the disc is of traditional Swedish folk fiddle music. It was planned to come out on a specialist folk-music label, but for one reason or another was never released. Now, more than 30 years later, the album is finally available. Apparently Swedish folk music doesn’t usually use much in the way of plucked instruments, so the duo were something of a rarity when they first arrived on the scene. If that’s the case, you’d never know it. Switching freely between classical guitars and lutes, the polskas here sound completely natural in their new duo format. On several tracks the duo is joined by fiddlers – and the owners of the record label the album was intended to be released on – Magnus Bäckström and Per Gudmundson, a quartet collectively known as the Nordic Strings. These…

This new disc from Erato brings together the most prominent members of the Bach family – JS, JC, CPE in concerti and WF in a short keyboard piece. Johann Sebastian ran a musical society named Collegium Musicum (which was founded by Telemann!), and often gave concerts at the local Café Zimmermann. I have to say that I rather like the idea of drinking a coffee and listening to a newly-written Bach concerto. The art is a nice change from the portraits of Bach that so often wind up appearing on the cover of CDs. Flip open the cover here and there’s Rondeau himself relaxing in a forest, looking like he could fit right in with hip folksters like Devendra Banhart or Iron & Wine. That being said, the styling of the performers makes absolutely no difference to the sound, so how does he play? Very well, as it turns out… but with some decidedly odd phrasing in some places. In the tutti passages everything goes swimmingly. The orchestral playing is powerful and decisive, the harpsichord nicely recorded. However, once Rondeau hits the cadenzas, he injects ritardandos in every few bars. I found this a little affected and, at times, quite…

In the era of Spotify playlists, we might expect to be living in a golden age of the “sample album”.

In some ways, this recording is quite a departure for the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra. In other ways, it isn’t. Who else but an ensemble specialising in historically-informed performances on period instruments could bring such innate understanding to the Baroque underpinnings of Grieg’s From Holberg’s Time – Suite in the Olden Style and Mendelssohn’s early String Symphony No 3 in E Minor? As for the ABO’s other novel offering – Paganini’s fiendishly difficult Violin Concerto No 4 – there’s a real lightness, crispness and suppleness required here that makes a HIP technique perfectly suited to Paganini’s OTT showmanship. This is especially the case with the ABO’s guest director and soloist, Netherlands-based violinist Shunske Sato. Concertmaster of both Concerto Köln and the Netherlands Bach Society, Sato is equally at home on modern and historical instruments. He is also clearly equally at home in repertoire as diverse as the three aforementioned works, here recorded live last year by Classic FM at Sydney’s City Recital Hall. The Grieg is given a delightful freshness, a newly-minted quality, by contrasting a generous use of portamenti with a parsimonious application of vibrato throughout. This lends a luminous clarity both to the lyrical movements such as the Sarabande…