Although it’s tempting to think of period performance as consisting mainly of lutes and viols, the reality is far from that! This is a recording of Brahms’ Piano Quartet No 1 in G Minor and the Piano Quintet in F Minor as he would have heard it. The three string players use gut-strung instruments and Neal Peres Da Costa plays a replica of Brahms’ Streicher grand piano. Along with Ironwood’s extensive exploration of performance practice of the late 19th century, this all adds up to quite a different sound.   I have to admit that I find a significant number of Brahms recordings woefully heavy and ponderous. These recordings, however, are quite the opposite. I suspect that it’s Ironwood’s careful research into the performance of the music of Brahms and his contemporaries that gives these performances a lightness that’s refreshing. Most recordings that I’ve heard of the Piano Quintet tend to emphasise the power of many of the passages, but for once ensemble passages are not completely overpowering. The liner notes point out that one of the key elements of Brahms’ own performances was the avoidance of metronomic playing, calling it “free, very elastic and expansive”. Perhaps… Continue reading Get…

In one form or other, most of us are familiar with the music of Percy Grainger; arguably the most internationally successful of all Australian composers – at least until the advent of Peter Sculthorpe. Grainger was also a dazzling pianist and could make one piano sound like four, so the extra layers of counterpoint and detail, all sparkling and optimistic, sound even more spectacular in these editions. Apart from attractive pot-boilers such as Handel in the Strand, Country Gardens and Molly on the Shore, the four discs offer us the opportunity to hear music that we are unfamiliar with. New to me are the Wrath of Odin and The Rival Brothers, and some pieces work best in their orchestral and vocal form, such as The Lonely Desert Man. The Brisk Young Sailor has all the Grainger hallmarks that made him such an entertaining composer: cross rhythms, syncopations and a bright engaging tune. English Waltz is also a marvellous piece and goes with an engaging swing. Not all are short trifles. Hill Song No 1 is over 16 minutes long, and wanders its convoluted way across the keyboard as if the composer was searching for something. The three pianists… Continue reading…

ith this album, Lawrence Power asks a question: what would happen if the viola took centre-stage?

Richard Strauss’s Elektra premiered in 1909, representing the cutting edge of modernist expressionism. Two years later, Der Rosenkavalier proved an even bigger triumph. Also to a libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, this opera was crammed with tuneful waltzes in imitation of the ‘other Strauss’. Musically it seemed like a backward step, but Strauss had never aimed to be progressive. A true man of the theatre, he simply treated Hofmannsthal’s subject matter as the drama demanded. Hearing both works today, it is clear they have much in common: soaring soprano lines, restless chromatic harmonies and extremely lush orchestration.   Strauss prepared two “Waltz Sequences” from Der Rosenkavalier for concert use. A longer suite was arranged by the conductor Artur Rodzinski. It was reworked later by Josef Krips, who restored the concluding music of the opera in place of Rodzinski’s inflated ending. (The Rodzinski version is performed here, but I prefer the Krips.) The suite from Elektra is new: “conceptualised” by Manfred Honeck and realised by Tomáš Ille. In both cases I miss the vocal component, especially in the Presentation of the Rose and the great final trio of Rosenkavalier. In the melodramatic Elektra, all of Strauss’s orchestral wizardry… Continue reading Get…

CPE Bach performances that blow everything else away.

Australian composer Alfred Hill clearly liked to borrow music from himself, as his Piano Concerto in A features here on this Hyperion release alongside its source material – his Piano Sonata in A. Johannes Fritzsch leads Piers Lane and the Adelaide Symphony through this glowing, romantic score.   The concerto is being recorded 75 years after its Australian premiere. Lane’s performance is touching; patient with his melody, he seems to treasure each note with understanding and tenderness. The third movement Nocturne – (Homage to Chopin) – is filled with yearning, swells in the strings given added presence by gentle timpani. The album is well mixed, enabling us to hear and feel the communication between each part. Its finale is tasteful and radiant. Between the two Hill works sits George Boyle’s Piano Concerto in D Minor – perhaps the earliest work composed in this form in Australia. Coincidentally, its premiere was conducted by Hill in 1913. The work is theatrical and classy, taking us back to an era long past. After its hearty conclusion, Hill’s Piano Sonata then brings things down a notch. With all other instruments gone, it seems… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe…

Russian conductor Semyon Bychkov is a life-long Tchaikovsky devotee, and the Tchaikovsky Project is a personal homage to the composer with whom he first fell in love. The Project consists of performances in London and New York (initially), plus recordings with the Czech Philharmonic for Decca. The first of these is the monumental “Pathetique”, a musical autobiography of Tchaikovsky’s short life of 53 years. Its devastating final movement has been the source of much speculation, but for Bychkov, “it’s obvious to me the whole piece is a protest against death… the last movement tells us that the triumph [of the previous movement] is just an illusion. Death can’t be avoided, but the anger in the music tells us Tchaikovsky refuses to accept it.” It’s paired with another slice of doom-laden anguish, the instantly recognisable and gorgeously lyrical Fantasy Overture, inspired by art’s most famous lovers, Romeo and Juliet. Bychkov immersed himself in Tchaikovsky’s letters and other archival material and insisted on “unusually luxurious” recording conditions in order to “invest everything” in these sessions. The result is a robust, lush reading, deeply Romantic with well-paced climaxes… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log…

Shostakovich wrote his First Violin Concerto in 1947-48 while persecuted and bullied by Andrei Zhdanov. The Soviet Central Committee secretary announced his decree on music, condemning formalism and naming Shostakovich specifically, while the composer was writing the Scherzo, imprinted with the jagged musical motif based on his initials, DSCH, used here for the first time. The concerto – written, like the second, for David Oistrakh – wasn’t performed until 1955, once Zhdanov and Stalin were dead. It is these tensions, fears and anxieties that German violinist Peter Frank Zimmermann brings to the fore in his agonised performances of Shostakovich’s Violin Concertos with the NDR Elbphilharmonie – the renamed NDR Sinfonieorchester – led by Alan Gilbert and recorded live at the Laeiszhalle, Hamburg in 2012 and 2015 respectively. In the First Concerto Zimmermann bases his performance of the solo part of the autograph manuscript – which includes Shostakovich’s own metronome marks and bowing instructions – rather than the often heard version edited by Oistrakh. He also uses the composer’s preferred opus number – 77 – in keeping with the work’s date of composition rather than publication. Above the restive strings of the opening Nocturne, Zimmermann’s sound has a rich,… Continue reading…

Latvian mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča’s voice has only been growing in power and weight since she first came onto the scene in 2001, unaccountably missing out on the top prize at the Cardiff Singer of the World competition. Now, several albums later and with many role successes at the Met and Royal Opera under her belt, she returns with a new recording and a new sound. Well, perhaps not entirely new. Garancˇa has been heading towards this heavier repertoire for a while, trading her signature bel canto for Verdi, verismo and the swoonier French 19th-century repertoire. Scenes from Samson et Dalila and Werther are inevitable, but arias for Eboli, Santuzza and Didon (let alone Marina’s Skuchno Marine… from Boris Godunov) feel more exploratory, more like first steps in a new journey. No Amneris or Azucena yet, but Garanča’s programme note makes clear that it’s only a matter of time. The theme underpinning this wide-ranging collection of scenes and arias is an interesting one: strong women at moments of crisis. It’s not a concept that reduces very tidily to a tagline, but musically it amounts to an album of beautifully managed contradictions. Garanča finds the girlish frailty in Santuzza… Continue reading Get…

The tolerant opera buff will be rewarded with this latest volume in Desiree Records’ Great Voices of Australia series.

A turquoise background offsets seven pin-up girls juxtaposed into the letters P-O-P C-O-R-N. The playful album matches The 7 Sopranos’ spirit in this compilation of songs from stage and screen. A luscious bloom of strings and brass introduces the disc, quickly heralding us into an overture before the words “I got rhythm” ring out in all-female voices. They aren’t always perfectly in tune, and the balance of the ensemble could be better approached, however, when listening to such classics as these, perhaps the addition of some ‘human’ qualities helps you to believe in the dream of romance. Dubin and Warren’s Keep Young and Beautiful is crisp and maybe a little deliberately pompous. In Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend, soloist Clarissa Spata comes to the fore in a rich and glamorous rendition. It’s a fairly simple ride, but the 16 tracks are well spaced with swooning, slower tunes interspersed with upbeat toe-tappers. Other highlights include I Enjoy Being a Girl by Rodgers and Hammerstein and Howard’s Fly Me to the Moon, modestly featuring soloist Deborah Rogers. The 7 Sopranos pays homage to this golden era with grace and authenticity. As they state in their sleeve notes: “We believe in making…

A dignified performance, but does it come close to Bernstein's Enigma?