It was the famous gift of 20,000 francs from the aging Paganini that allowed Berlioz to take time out from the drudgery of music journalism in 1839 and devote himself to a new work. Romeo and Juliet had been close to his heart since his then muse and now wife had played the heroine a decade earlier – but Berlioz was never one to choose the obvious. Shakespeare was too sublime to risk throwing it away on the Opéra (who had recently massacred his Benvenuto Cellini), so the French maverick embarked upon his third, and most unusual symphony to date. The result was a unique hybrid that even now struggles to find a home in the concert hall. A pity, as with a little imagination (and enough money for the substantial forces), it is full of drama, poetry and intensely original orchestral passages. In short, a masterpiece. Robin Ticciati has proven himself heir to Colin Davis with his Berlioz series on Linn (a fresh Fantastique, a moving L’Enfance du Christ and a very special Nuits d’Été) and this last instalment is, if anything, even finer. The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra plays superbly and the Linn engineers achieve a fine separation…

Young Swedish instrumentalist Jonas Nordberg (I hesitate to call him merely a lutenist, as he plays everything from the Renaissance lute to the 19th-century guitar) has already proven himself a formidable musical and dramatic collaborator – witness his work with recorder player Dan Laurin and, separately, with choreographer Kenneth Kvarnström. However this, his debut solo recording, demonstrates for those who have yet to hear Nordberg in recital, just what a gifted poet of the lute and theorbo he is. Indeed, one need only read his booklet notes to get something of the measure of his refined, somewhat melancholy, sensibility. Of Dufaut’s Tombeau de Mr. Blancrocher, he writes, “As the piece develops, however, unexpected harmonies appear like fierce stabs of pain. At some points the music is still as a millpond; at others, it seems as frustrated as a prisoner trying to break free from the chains of death.” But the performance is the thing, and if Nordberg cannot yet count himself as a member of that pantheon of players which includes such luminaries as Rolf Lislevand, Fred Jacobs, Nigel North and Hopkinson Smith, he’s well on his way to reaching the summit of Mt Parnassus. One only has to listen…

If you want a collection of bombastic, second-rate piano concerti in which Rachmaninov’s parentage is obvious, then this is the disc for you. However, there are some gems, such as Hubert Bath’s 1944 Cornish Rhapsody (A Lady Surrenders) and Richard Addinsell’s Warsaw Concerto for Dangerous Moonlight (1941). On the other hand, I don’t think much of Shostakovich’s music for The Unforgettable Year (1951), steeped in musical rhetoric of the worst type and possibly written to order by the authorities. Similarly vacuous is Kenneth Leslie-Smith’s music for The Women’s Angle (1952) and Nino Rota’s unusually poor music for The Glass Mountain (1949).Charles Williams’ charming music for The Apartment (1949) is far better.  Richard Rodney Bennett’s journeyman music for the overrated Murder on the Orient Express is not the best film music he ever wrote, whereas Jack Beaver’s music for The Case of The Frightened Lady (1940), is first class. After pages of arpeggios it was a relief to hear Dave Grushin’s On Golden Pond (1981) for piano. Finally, Carl Davis’ elegant and freewheeling music for Pride and Prejudice (1985) is arguably the best music on the disc. Valentina Lisitsa plays all the music very well, and the orchestral accompaniments are equally…

I enjoyed this Brahms cycle. Fortunately, Asher Fish is not a member of the “Brahms Lite” Chapter or a Chailly/Gardiner – style speed merchant. What’s more, unlike the hapless, battle-jacketed George W Bush standing on the deck of that aircraft carrier, under a sign proclaiming “Mission Accomplished”, Asher Fisch really has accomplished his “mission” to transform the West Australian Symphony Orchestra from merely good into a potentially great instrument, on the strength of theses performances at least. It plays with confidence, sheen and finesse. The buoyant galumphing rhythm of the opening movement of the First Symphony is just right (no repeat observed – presumably because of the plan to fit this and the Second Symphony on a single CD) without diminishing the inherent drama. The second and third movements are really like lightly scored serenade movements buffering two huge epic book-ends, but it’s here the quality of the woodwind phrasing (and the depth of the orchestra’s talent) becomes apparent. This is warmly shaped, with oboe and clarinet solos notable but also a lovely extended reverie by concertmaster Jackson duetting with horns. The Finale, with its deliberately tentative opening, is always problematic but Fisch guides his players through treacherous shoals until the liberation of…

The much debated cover shot – there was a competition to redesign it – says a lot about Anna Netrebko’s approach to verismo, the late 19th-century phenomenon that sought to bring real flesh and blood onto the operatic stage. The choice of what appears to be several costumes at once – and all of them out of Game of Thrones – shows a muddy thinking about the genre, manifested in some odd choices. What is La Gioconda doing here? Some roles suit Netrebko better than others – she sounds too old for Butterfly, and definitely too heavy-voiced for Liù or Nedda. More mature characters like Tosca (Vissi d’arte is a real highlight), Adriana Lecouvreur and Boito’s Helen sit far better. Maddalena de Coigny in Andrea Chénier fits like a glove and her La mamma morta is often thrilling. La Wally’s Ebben? Ne andrò lontana also works well, the steel in the voice suiting this fierce maid of the mountain. As the voice has darkened, dramatic roles like Lady Macbeth have come within her compass. To judge from this recording, Turandot (again, technically not a verismo role) is one such. Opera houses should be booking her now! Inconsistencies abound, however, as…

Gianni Schicchi, Puccini’s only comedy, was the last in his penultimate opera, Il Trittico, premiered in New York in 1918.Schicchi, often performed separately, tells of a money-grabbing family undone by an unscrupulous lawyer. Apart from the lawyer, the only people to emerge unscathed are Schicchi’s daughter Lauretta (she of O mio babbino caro fame) and her lover Rinuccio. Puccini was an entertainer. He didn’t moralise in the way Verdi did, but his operas, despite years of sniffing from the musical establishment remain brilliant creations, with remarkable melodies and superb orchestrations. His flair for the dramatic is ever present and the matching of music to text is remarkable. Rinuccio’s glorious aria in praise of Florence, for example, is tucked seamlessly into the narrative.   Woody Allan directs adroitly, his added treats in no way undermining the work. The busy cast perform well, and although the days are long gone when opera singers could stand like statues, opera ‘acting’ still hovers. This is especially noticeable when the camera closes in on the action. Sadly, the audio recording is dead dull and the orchestra under Grant Gershon, performs perfunctorily. So buy it for Domingo’s saturnine Schicchi and Allen’s clever production.

Sergeant David Griffin was just 27-years old when he wrote The Happiness Box in wartime Singapore. The year was 1942, and the POW wished to create a story for Changi Jail’s child prisoners. Griffin’s fellow inmate Leslie Greener crafted illustrations (which form the cover of this release). Before the final product could be confiscated by the Japanese, the book was buried in an ammunition container for safekeeping, arriving in Australia after the war. It was published in 1947 and now almost seven decades later has been set to music by composer Bryony Marks. Quite a story, right? But despite its heavy history, this is a work that will reach many a child’s heart. It opens with conductor Brett Kelly introducing the instruments and their roles in shaping the characters, and then the Melbourne Symphony begins to tell the story with narration from Stephen Curry. It’s charming and frolicking, and rings with the memories of an Australian countryside Griffin may have yearned for during his captivity and creation of the book.  The work is fast-paced and inspires us to visualise Griffin’s story (without ever lingering for too long on any musical idea). Even for an adult listener, it’s a lot of…

The Austrian Felix Weingartner (1863-1942) is nowadays best known for conducting the first recordings of the Beethoven and Brahms symphonies. In his own day, though, he was equally renowned as a composer, especially of symphonic music and opera. Die Dorfschule (The Temple School) was his tenth out of a grand total of 12. The plot comes from a gripping Kabuki play about 10th-century Japanese feudal politics. An exiled chancellor’s son, Kwan Shusai, has been secretly brought up by Genzo, a loyal samurai who, along with his long-suffering wife, is now running a school. When the noble, Matsuo, demands the boy’s severed head, Genzo murders a recently enrolled pupil instead. Only at the end do we discover the dead boy is actually Matsuo’s own son who he enrolled in Genzo’s school as a decoy to save the life of Kwan Shusai. A contemporary of Strauss, Weingartner’s music sounds a little leaner, yet he’s very much a student of the post-Wagner school. But where the symphonies are often sumptuous, Die Dorfschule has an austerity that marries perfectly with its grim tale of honour and sacrifice. Only in the Imperial march does the composer let his hair down.  The cast are splendid all…

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…