Bruch’s reputation was dealt a blow during the Nazi period as the dopey fascists thought that, as a result of his fine cello work, Kol Nidrei, he was probably a Jew and consequently banned his music. It took a long time for it to be returned to favour. The Scottish Fantasy is among his most popular works, and deservedly so. The mordant opening doesn’t promise much, but the violin soon emerges in a series of ruminative phrases and beguiling sea surges from which the fine melody (for which the work is famous) develops. The Adagio is gorgeous and the five-movement fantasia finishes with a robust swirl of the kilts. His third violin concerto is rarely played and it’s not hard to see why. Although professionally written, it seems to have little appeal and cannot hold a candle to the popular First Concerto. The final movement is the strongest, with many attractive phrases reminding us of his better works. At the risk of seeming a smart-Alec, it may have helped had he included some Scottish folk tunes. Nonetheless, Bruch considered it his best concerto and who am I to argue?… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe…

Daniel Barenboim recorded a fine Elgar Falstaff with the London Philharmonic in 1974 so it is touching that he should program the work 40 years later for this Europakonzert recorded in Berlin’s Philharmonie. It is thrilling to hear players rip into the piece as though it were Don Juan or Till Eulenspiegel and the performance emphasises Elgar’s affinity with Strauss. The big moments come across with visceral impact while the gentle reflective moments are breathtakingly beautiful.  Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony may divide opinion; those who believe the Russian way is the only way will turn their noses up, but those with open ears will recognise a deeply emotional reading with broad tempi and grandly moulded gestures. Barenboim goes straight through with barely a breath between movements, and his conducting is a miracle of economy; there are big rallentandi and obvious gear changes but they are always organic and the orchestra stick to him like glue. Tonal resources mean there’s always something in reserve and the huge climaxes are always rounded; an iron fist in a velvet glove. Individual contributions are predictably superb but principal clarinettist Wenzel Fuchs stands… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a…

The name Siegfried Mauser may not be familiar to Western European ears, but those who do know the name know him as a pianist who has specialised in 20th century German contrapuntal pianism from the likes of Hindemith, Hartmann and Henze. Now is probably the optimum time for him to be investigating Mozart’s keyboard sonatas as he has also published a text on them and has recently been made head of the Salzburg’s esteemed Mozarteum. Of course there have been many surveys of this cycle and it often comes down to personal favourites. Mine include the straightforward approach of the 50s’ EMI cycle by Walter Gieseking. For modern cycles, I’ve long been an advocate of Mitsuko Uchida’s fine Philips traversal. Frustrating and amusing by turn, I’ve also been fascinated by Glenn Gould (Sony), where critics have gone so far as to suggest that this must rank amongst the worst discs ever made! Yet somehow in spite of his distortions, Mozart’s music survives and encourages debate, and surely this is important. Against this backdrop Mauser may appear as coy if not conservative, for he is completely at ease in letting this music speak on its own behalf. And surely the fact…

La Belle Excentrique could just as easily refer to the mildly eccentric French soprano Patricia Petibon as to Satie’s fantasie sérieuse for orchestra, two movements of which, arranged for piano four hands, grace this very enjoyable, very French musical potpourri. But don’t be fooled: Petibon, whose intelligence is as impressive as the formidable coloratura technique which served her so well in the baroque repertoire which for a time was her core business, also serves up some exquisitely sung chansons and mélodies by masters such as Léo Ferré and Gabrielle Fauré.  There is plenty of light here – but also plenty of shade. Such extremes are even found within the Satie pieces which make up the bulk of the instrumental music: witness pianists Susan Manoff – Petibon’s regular accompanist – and David Levi having a ball with Satie’s Cancan grand-mondain from La Belle Excentrique before Manoff surfaces again with a beautiful account of the same composer’s neo-baroque Désespoir agreeable. Some of the vocal works are enhanced by cello – Satie’s famous waltz Je te veux (with cellist Christian-Pierre La Marca), violin – Ferré’s gorgeous On s’aimera (Nemanja Radulovic is the violinist) and even, as is the case with Manuel Rosenthal’s dreamlike…

As we leave CDs behind and move into downloads – where music will no longer be a collectors item but just another dreary list on your computer screen – somebody at Universal Classics at least has a sense of history.  It is five decades since Herbert von Karajan’s 1963 set of the Beethoven symphonies with the Berlin Philharmonic was released. It was not the first recording of these works by the one orchestra and conductor – Karajan himself had recorded them in the 1950s with the Philharmonia – but it was the first to be released and marketed as a set. DG executives were worried the gamble would fail and they wouldn’t break even, but within ten years a million copies had been sold. I once stayed with two lumberjacks in Banff, Canada: these were only classical records they owned. It was everybody’s introduction to Beethoven. The orchestra made these recordings after five years with Karajan in charge. During that time he had hired young players and retired older ones. He also had begun to insist on the ‘long line’ of lyrical impulse, but not yet the moulding of orchestral balance to prioritise beauty of sound over energy and attack….

Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto is, more or less, in the mainstream but, I have to confess, I’d actually forgotten that he actually wrote a second! Tetzlaff is up with the best in virtually anything he does and his performance and interpretation is very fine. My favourite movement is always the introductory Nocturne, with its sinuous (and in this case sinewy theme). The two even numbered movements provide colour and movement with all the deliberately sinister overtones of forced hilarity and rejoicing they always convey in Shostakovich’s scores. Tetzlaff is alive to every nuance here. In the great Passacaglia, the work’s center of gravity, he is genuinely moving with rock steady tone and dignified phrasing. Of course David Oistrakh, for whom both works were written, casts an eternally long shadow. Nonetheless, Tetzlaff is eminently recommendable.  The Second Concerto was composed in 1966 and is a very different kettle of fish. More sparsely orchestrated, it consists of mainly slow music until the last minutes. The first movement has the sphinx-like inscrutability common to many Shostakovich late scores and the second tends to meander. Tetzlaff is impressive here, but it’s not surprising the work features rarely in concert. Ondine’s sound, Storgårds’ conducting and…

Buy this album on iTunes: Bach: The Art of Fugue – Angela Hewitt Bach’s final work, The Art of Fugue, is a formidable contrapuntal challenge for any musician – it’s essentially the Mount Everest of Baroque intricacy, containing some of his most devilishly complex part-writing. The work, consisting of fourteen fugues and four canons, is written utilising a different permutation of the same theme in each part, so Bach’s single short theme is presented in dozens of different ways. The four-bar theme is heard in augmentation (longer note values), diminution (shorter note values), inverted (upside-down), and in a whole variety of canons. Such an intensely cerebral work will acquire an air of mystery in any case, and the fact that Bach died before he could finish it has only added to its reputation. Perhaps that’s why it has taken renowned Bach pianist Angela Hewitt quite so long to tackle this behemoth; she’s been recording Baroque works on the piano for many years, but she’s only added The Art of Fugue to her repertoire in 2012. It may have taken her a little while, but it’s been well worth waiting for, and I only wish that she had recorded this work…

Buy this album on iTunes: Sculthorpe: The Complete String Quartets with Didjeridu – Del Sol String Quartet & Stephen Kent The string quartet was central to Peter Sculthorpe’s output. His last, No 18, had its premiere on his 81st birthday. He undoubtedly liked string instruments because of their ability to sustain long-held notes. Drones play a pivotal part, not only in imitation of indigenous music, but as an aural equivalent to the Australian outback. Strings are also adept at imitating birdcalls, as the third movement of Quartet No 14 shows. Sculthorpe’s quartet writing with its drones and repetitive ostinati contain all of this, and through subtle harmonic and rhythmic juxtapositions he suggests the life with which this landscapes teems. Neither the terrain nor his musical depiction of it is remotely passive. In 2001 Sculthorpe was introduced to a young Aboriginal didjeridu player, William Barton, who asked Sculthorpe to write for him. The composer responded by adding a didjeridu part to some of his orchestral works, notably Earth Cry and Kakadu. He also added the instrument to his existing String Quartets Nos 12, 14 and 16 – the ones with the most significant Aboriginal themes. Later works… Continue reading Get unlimited digital…

You know that New York’s Met has made it into the 21st century when it starts putting on operas with cyber-thriller plots. Manhattan-based Nico Muhly (The Reader, Kill Your Darlings) has all the audacity you’d expect from a composer in his thirties, and to call this recent production daring would be a glaring understatement. The opera, with libretto by Craig Lucas, is based on true events: a teenage boy is stabbed in the heart and lies comatose in a hospital bed. An older boy is the main suspect. Detective Anne Strawson must discover how an online friendship could wind up in attempted murder. The investigation leads to a mysterious and sordid world of online chat rooms. Muhly’s music has a modern edge and his orchestration glows like the virtual colour-world of cyberspace. The score is full of fascinating textures, including a disturbing polyphony of chat room addicts: mums and miscreants chanting in fragmented cyberspeak. It underscores the drama well and is highly engaging, though there’s the unmistakable suggestion of John Adams’ operatic style and language at play. The leads are strong. In particular, Paul Appleby’s sensitive turn as the confused and tormented older boy, Brian, as well as Alice Coote’s…

The Decca Phase 4 label began as part of London Records, Decca’s American branch, to specialise in sonic spectaculars. The opposite of Mercury, which employed two microphones, the Phase 4 engineers multi-miked orchestras and highlighted instruments and sections at the mixing desk. From 1964 to 1978 they recorded classical music, often hiring famous but neglected conductors. This anthology gives a wide cross section, from Robert Merrill singing American patriotic songs with soupy arrangements, to Paco Peña’s flamenco guitar, to Orff’s Carmina Burana. Much is no longer popular, nor does it have the ‘cool’ factor to warrant a revival. Stokowski conducts Berlioz, Russian music and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons at the end of his career, but is far better served by his 1950s EMI recordings. (His best Phase 4 disc, coupling Ives and Messiaen, is absent!) Stokowski’s Beethoven 9, along with Leinsdorf’s Mahler 1 and Doráti’s New World Symphony are comparatively successful, while Stanley Black is a good conductor of light music. The most interesting recordings are of Herrmann and Rósza conducting their film scores, but these are more extensively covered in Eloquence editions. Decca’s English executives pooh-poohed the Phase 4 sonics, and they were right. The sound is dry, unnaturally close,…

Two minor string quartets recorded in the Ballroom of Government House, Hobart might sound underwhelming. but Virtuosi Tasmania provide a terrific match with Haydn and Debussy on their latest release. Debussy’s stunning String Quartet in G Minor is thrillingly suspenseful. The second movement throbs with metronomic pizzicato, supplying fantastic textural contrasts. The Andantino, doucement expressif is painful in its beauty: this is the sort of music string quartets were created for. The romance comes to an impossibly peaceful ending, weakened only by a shaky beginning to the final chord. A pulsing cello drives the final movement to its brilliant finish. Haydn’s String Quartet in F Minor, Op 20 No 5 sounds conservative and might have had more impact had it been placed first. This is not to suggest the two works aren’t an appropriate fit – in fact, Haydn offers an emotional respite after the intensity of the Debussy. Haydn’s reliably repetitive motives in the first movement are followed by a light Menuetto. Because of the subtlety of this quartet, the ballroom’s mildly reverberant acoustics are more apparent. The Adagio pulses like a lullaby before coming to a dreamy end, followed by the Finale: Fuga a due soggetti. These final…

Vivaldi’s most famous work readily lends itself to being performed on flute or recorder, the instruments’ pastoral and avian associations making them a natural fit for these bucolic tone poems overflowing with evocations of birdsong, peasant dances and storms. Jane Rutter and Sinfonia Australis take a hybrid approach, combining modern flute with a small period band under the brilliant Erin Helyard conducting from the harpsichord. Many of the players are Brandenburg Orchestra regulars, including Matt Bruce, Kirsty McCahon and Tommie Andersson on theorbo. The argument thus becomes less about authenticity per se and more about marrying an appropriate period style to an anachronistic tonal palette. Fortunately, it works a treat. Adopting a flexible approach to pulse and tempo throughout – both qualities can be heard right from the outset in Spring – Rutter steers a middle course between highly articulated declamation and floating lyricism in the midst of Sinfonia Australis’ sharply drawn yet delicately rendered sylvan landscapes. Of the two works included which Vivaldi actually did write for flute, the ever-popular Concerto in D Minor RV428 “Il gardellino” and the Concerto in G Minor “La notte”, Rutter uses a 19th-century instrument with an ebony joint for the latter. The sound…