Gorgeous warm sound, interpretations and playing.

Perlman and Argerich have only played together once before, but there is no denying their synchronicity.

Musical delights from Australia’s premier player of the recorder.

The piano four-hands configuration is surely one of the more humble performance traditions, shirking the flashy egoism of solo playing in favour of friendly fun. But that’s not to say the music isn’t virtuosic, as Anna Grinberg and Liam Viney show in their recent release on ABC Classics, offering an attractive programme of Australian music that’s not without depth. Carl Vine’s Sonata for Piano Four-hands is a multifaceted work that explores the textural combinations possible where four hands share melodies and accompanying figures that ripple and dance with a modal energy. Stuart Greenbaum’s own sonata takes inspiration from the cosmos, building a language inspired by the relationship between Sun and Earth – at times powerful and domineering, at others contemplative and spacious. Both works are evocative responses to the four-hands conundrum and make for satisfying listening. Music by Ross Edwards and Peter Sculthorpe tap into the duo’s tradition of music for younger players. Edwards’ Nine Bagatelles are charming miniatures that dance and play with casual merriment, and occasionally a hint of the telltale Edwards ‘maninya’ style. Sculthorpe’s Four Little Pieces are all arrangements of previous works for piano, imbued with a lyrical melodic character. Elena Kats-Chernin’s Victor’s… Continue reading Get…

A return to first love: Brodskys bring searing intensity to a cycle of "old friends".

Ever the perfectionist, Bruckner left two versions of his Eighth Symphony – the last symphony he completed. After his “artistic father” Hermann Levi rejected the first version, Bruckner spent three years revising the work. In this performance by the Australian World Orchestra, recorded live in the Sydney Opera House’s Concert Hall in 2015, Sir Simon Rattle uses Robert Haas’s 1939 edition – a hybrid that incorporates elements from both of Bruckner’s versions. The Haas version has remained popular, conductors like Karajan and Haitink continuing to use it even after Leopold Nowak released his more authentic scholarly editions of the symphony in 1972. From the shimmering violins and brooding basses of the opening, Rattle leads the AWO through a mammoth symphony, which has attracted the nickname Apocalyptic – a moniker that captures the scope if not quite the atmosphere of the work. The two-plus-three “Bruckner rhythm” – given so much motivic weight in the composer’s Seventh – sweeps through the strings in the first movement while the descending figures, like pealing-bells in the Scherzo are flowing and expansive under magically shimmering strings. The AWO’s brass and timpani conjure vast landscapes that fade away again into solitude. The Adagio… Continue reading Get…

This second volume of British overtures is a cracker and full of vibrant charm. Much of the content has a distinctly nautical feel like William Walton’s Portsmouth Point, played decently here but without the snap that the ‘old’ Philharmonia in its heyday brought to this notoriously tricky score with its constant syncopations and kaleidoscopically fluctuating time signatures. Then there is The Boatswain’s Mate by Ethel Smyth (photographed in what Barry Humphries would call a “Hampstead lady novelist get-up”) and John Ansell’s Plymouth Ho. Even more impressive are the tragically short-lived Walter Leigh’s heraldic Agincourt, in the same mould as Elgar’s Froissart and Walton’s Henry V incidental music, and Sir Alexander Campbell Mackenzie’s A Nautical Overture, bizarrely dedicated to the Duke of Coburg and Gotha, a sinister German relative of the pre-Windsor British Royal Family, whose own title was then (1895) the same. Parry’s Overture to an Uunwritten Tragedy introduces a darker note (the “unwritten” tragedy turns out to be Shakespeare’s Othello… go figure!)  My three favourite pieces are Roger Quilter’s Children’s Overture, which features a sequence of nursery rhymes, John Foulds’ Le Cabaret, inspired by a French play … Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already…

Batiashvili and Barenboim here prove the perfect partners.

When Time Stops is choreographer Natalie Weir’s exploration of the final moments of a woman’s life. Iain Grandage revisits his score in this explosive recording from the Camerata of St John’s. The composer tells us the piece is “not only about death. It is also intrinsically about life and the moments within it where one’s normal sense of the moment is stretched”. Immediately obvious is the strength of the music without visual support from the accompanying dance narrative. Rowing 1 begins with blood-curdling strings before Katherine Philp halts us with a cello melody. The second track, Street 1, is a violent commotion of textured strings. The relationship between tracks means the album should be approached in one sitting. Higher tones and heightened emotional intensity inform Rowing 2, and First Kiss brings a euphoric wave of strings. Also of note is Orb, with Chloe Ann Williamson’s double bass pulsing under impassioned and fiery melodies from violist Elizabeth Lawrence. The resolution leaves us hanging on for more. Violinist Brendan Joyce stands out in the grating and trance-like repetition of Scan, while Into the Wall is thick and rhythmic. Impeccable intonation is heard in all movements, though particularly noticeable in… Continue reading Get…

Aaron Copland learnt an important lesson from Nadia Boulanger: keep it simple. The renowned composition pedagogue and mighty force in French contemporary music impressed upon the young American the importance of making orchestral music immediately playable, lest he get on the wrong side of conductor and band. Aware of the consequences, Copland didn’t follow the advice. The result is a fascinating collection of early symphonic sorties, presented on Chandos by the BBC Philharmonic under John Wilson’s baton. The Symphony for Organ and Orchestra opens with a nonchalant Andante, featuring slowly drifting melodic lines without clear harmonic focus. The BBC Symphony strings and winds exude a gentle warmth, matching nicely the sensitive timbral world of Jonathan Scott’s organ. Energy builds in the Scherzo, which features the tune-crafting and rhythmic verve Copland became famous for in his Appalachian Spring. The symphony returns to the warmth of the opening movement in the slow, searching finale, which has a darker, more stern atmosphere, with the organ used to particularly dramatic effect. The stern mood prevails in the composer’s own orchestration of his Piano Variations, which are built on an austere… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber?…

Mezzo-soprano superstar Joyce DiDonato’s latest album of Baroque opera arias started life as a project to bring to light some Neapolitan rarities, but it took a swift hairpin turn in November last year following the brutal terror attacks in Paris. The Kansas diva and the crack Il Pomo d’Oro under their exciting young Russian Chief Conductor Maxim Emelyanychev ditched the programme and came up with a selection of “war and peace” arias, all of them sending a strong message in troubled times. “As I have tried to convey in this selection of music, the power to bravely tip the scales towards peace lies firmly within every single one of us,” DiDonato says. Drawing mainly on much-loved arias from Handel and Purcell, the mezzo is in sizzling form, attacking the bellicose material with gusto. She looks like a lioness in profile on the cover and that is the feeling she brings here – you’d be a fool to mess with her! In stark contrast the “peace” songs, including back-to-back “swoon” tracks of Dido’s Lament by Purcell and Handel’s Lascia ch’io pianga from Rinaldo, are delivered with a glorious mixture of grace and irresistible sweetness. She does include some… Continue reading Get unlimited…

Ever since his Leipzig debut in 1896, Franz Lehár longed to be produced at the Vienna State Opera. The barriers – beginning with Mahler who thought his music amateurish – went up from the start. It was only  a financial crisis that led Clemens Krauss, desperate for a box office hit, to open the hallowed portals to the now famous composer in 1934. The result was Giuditta, and it tolled a knell not just for Lehár – it was his final stage work – but for Viennese operetta itself, an art form destined not to survive the Anschluss. That sense of resignation hangs over this bittersweet romance. Giuditta, an innkeeper’s wife, elopes with Octavio, a soldier, to Africa. When he slips off to battle, she believes herself abandoned, becomes a dancer and finally agrees to a liaison with a wealthy English Lord. Octavio returns too late – he still cares, but the song of love “faded away long ago”. Lehár really pushes the boat out, creating his richest, most beautifully orchestrated score, packed with melodic arias including Giuditta’s Meine Lippen, sie küssen so heiß. Ulf Schirmer’s new Munich recording is orchestrally stunning, perfectly paced with full, rich… Continue reading Get…