Laura Chislett’s Flute Vox was envisaged as a kind of sequel to her 1995 collaboration with pianist Stephanie McCallum, The Flute in Orbit. More than 20 years later, the pair have released a double CD exploring more recent works by the composers featured on their first album, as well as a selection of other works. The album is an eclectic mix of contemporary flute works, from the solid intensity of Edgard Varèse’s Density 21.5 – a venerable 80 years old this year – to Michael Smetanin’s spritely 2015 work for flutes and mixed media, Backbone. Toru Takemitsu’s Voice kicks off the first disc, the close, dry recording highlighting Chislett’s precise technique and making audible every nuance of breath, voice and air. While this allows the listener to hear every detail of Chislett’s playing, it also robs the work of some of its haunting mystery. Along with Varèse and Takemitsu, Iranian-American composer Reza Vali is the only other non-Australian composer on the recording, his Persian Suite (Folk Songs, Set No. 12E) contributing lyricism and spirited energy. The didgeridoo-like growls and percussive vocal attacks of Zadro’s Vox Box make… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a…

“The pianist imagines an old artist, one Franz Liszt, troubled by that spiritual sickness known as nostalgia. At the piano, he strikes up a waltz – Valse oubliée No 1 – but perturbed by his melancholic mood, the waltz trails off…” Thus begins Olivia Sham’s fantastic journey into the creative soul of Liszt à la Berlioz’s semi-autobiographical text for the Symphonie fantastique. The Australian-born Sham is currently based in London and has a special interest in 19th-century pianos and their music. She recently completed her PhD on Liszt performance practice at the Royal Academy of Music. Quoting directly from Berlioz and Liszt, her programme note imaginatively links works, from across Liszt’s lengthy career, which she performs on two silvery-toned Érards (1840 and 1845) and a modern Steinway model D. In a nod to the compositional procedures of both Berlioz and Liszt, Sham uses Liszt’s four Valses oubliées, played on the Steinway, as an idée fixe of sorts, to interrupt the aged Liszt’s reveries which take him back variously to the prodigious youth, the virtuoso “at the height of his prowess”, the iconoclast and the champion of new music. The… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe…

With works cherry-picked from across Saariaho’s career since 1982, this album shines a spotlight on the beauty and intimacy of her chamber music.

Ryan Wigglesworth is making a name for himself as an accomplished conductor, composer and pianist. He is Composer in Residence with the English National Opera, for whom he is writing an opera for the 2017 season, and is Principal Guest Conductor of the Hallé orchestra, who feature on this recording. This album is the first full-length portrait of his compositions and demonstrates his prowess over a variety of mediums. Wigglesworth’s Echo and Narcissus: A Dramatic Cantata, for which the album is named, is a setting of text from Ted Hughes’ Tales from Ovid that had its premiere at the Aldeburgh Festival in 2014. Wigglesworth on piano is joined by mezzo-soprano Pamela Helen Stephen, tenor Mark Padmore and two choruses of female voices. Stephen, augmented by chorus, is the narrator – her voice sumptuous and authoritative. The part of Echo is sung by a wistfully distant second chorus (heard mainly from offstage), while Padmore makes an anxious, keening Narcissus. The album opens with Augenlieder, a suite of four songs, settings of poems linked thematically by eye or gaze imagery, written for soprano Claire Booth. Wigglesworth conducts the Hallé,… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a…

American soprano Latonia Moore’s performance in the title role alone makes this home-grown DVD in a crowded market worth a look.

The D’Oyly Carte, famed for its association with the Gilbert & Sullivan operas since 1875, is now a memory. However its legacy lives on in many recordings and this 1958 version of The Mikado is arguably the best on record. Hearing it again I was struck afresh by the opera’s brilliance. In 1958 the company was still in fine fettle with a brilliant ensemble and had begun refreshing its principal line-up, such as replacing attenuated tenor Leonard Osborn with the superior Thomas Round. Ann Drummond-Grant was also a welcome change from the tradition of hooty altos; Jean Hindmarsh is a delightful Yum-Yum. Donald Adams delivers a splendid Mikado and Kenneth Sandford’s Pooh-Bah is first class. Sadly, as the patter man, Peter Pratt was never as good as Martyn Green or John Reed who came before and after him. Reed is heard to advantage as a spirited defendant in Trial by Jury. At 35 minutes and without dialogue, Trial by Jury is the miracle that got G&S off to such a fine start in 1875. This excellent recording is almost a match for the benchmark under Sir Malcom Sargent on EMI. Compared to… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4…

Harry Christophers has crafted this superb programme around four settings of King David’s lament for his slain son When David heard and describes it as “a best of poetry in music” – a big call, bearing in mind it is mostly sacred. William Harris’s Faire is the Heaven and Bring us, O Lord God are sumptuous double-choir anthems full of delicious added-note harmonies and make a glittering wrapping for the delights within. James MacMillan’s The Gallant Weaver is a modern miniature masterpiece of accessible appeal with its gentle hints of Scottish folksong; such a clever piece of vocal writing – its decaying repetitions at different speeds evoke the stacked digital delay effects of modern-day electronic techniques. A surprising rarity is Ivor Gurney’s Since I Believe in God the Father Almighty, an anthem for double choir that is a deeply moving prayer from a troubled soul; Gurney’s experiences at the Western Front haunted him and despite a brief flourish of creative activity after the War he spent the rest of his days institutionalised where he wrote this work. The austere lines set against rich harmonies with surprising side-steps of… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already…

This is the third album recorded for ABC Classics by Melbourne-based early music ensemble Latitude 37. Julia Fredersdorff (baroque violin), Laura Vaughan (viola da gamba) and Donald Nicolson (harpsichord) are renowned exponents of historically-informed performance, and for this recording they train their collective expertise on a cross-section of music from 17th-century England that collapses “the artificial divides of art music and popular music.” The album takes its name from the Royal Consorts of William Lawes (1602-1645), a set of ten suites or ‘setts’ of dances; Sett No 2 is presented here along with works by William Byrd and Henry Purcell, including one of his spectacular Fantasias for Viols and a jaw-dropping Let Me Weep from The Fairy Queen, featuring young Sydney soprano Alexandra Oomens. These sit beside works by less-famous composers including Davis Mell (1604-1662), William Corkine (1569-1645), and several anonymous works in arrangements. Of particular note is the world premiere recording of Fantasia-Suite No 2, an unpublished work for treble, bass viol and organ by Christopher Gibbons (1615-1676). It is an absolute delight to hear the chamber organ ‘breathing’ as this work begins, and as good… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a…

Alina Ibragimova has previously tackled Bach’s solo violin Sonatas and Partitas with great success, and here she presents an equally superb recording of the Bach violin concerti. JS Bach’s violin concertos are oft-recorded, so new performances have to face down most of the 20th (and 21st) century’s greatest violinists – not an easy task! However, with sensitive accompaniment from ensemble Arcangelo and director Jonathan Cohen, Ibragimova brings a fresh and lively approach to these popular favourites. Only two of the works on this disc are officially labelled as “violin concertos”, the Concerto in A Minor, BWV1041, and the Concerto in E Major, BWV1042. In contrast, the Concerto in A Major, BWV1055, the Concerto in F Minor, BWV1056, and the Concerto in D Minor, BWV1052 all exist as harpsichord concerti, but due to various quirks, scholars have suggested that the pieces once existed in violin concerto format as well. Parts of the keyboard versions contain passages that seem oddly reminiscent of violinistic writing, complete with double-stops and convenient open strings. The theory is that Bach wrote a violin original, transcribed it for harpsichord (or other instruments), and at some point the… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a…

Based on the premise that far more operas were written before 1750 than since, Pinchgut has been unearthing a rich stash of rediscovered treasures for Sydney audiences since 2002. Starting off with one production a year, the company under its Artistic Director Antony Walker has moved to two short seasons at the intimate City Recital Hall. For its 2014 offerings Pinchgut moved to the decade before the French Revolution to stage two contrasting works, Salieri’s comedy The Chimney Sweep and Gluck’s Euripidean saga of parricide, matricide and near-fratricide, Iphigénie en Tauride, which marked the 300th anniversary of the composer’s birth. You can now share the performance of the latter, containing some of Gluck’s finest music, with this live two-disc set. Premiered in Paris in 1789 Iphigénie was an instant hit and this disc shows why – the vocal and orchestral writing are both wonderful. The mystery is why it has taken so long for it to re-emerge from relative obscurity. Gluck pitches the listener straight into the dramatic action. Dispensing with an overture we hear the timpani signalling an approaching storm at sea off Scythia where Iphigénie, exiled after the goddess Diana saved her from being sacrificed by her father…

Silvestrov’s choral pieces assimilate a wide variety of influences from Romantic and post-Romantic Western music, with the aim of creating a personal, other-worldly effect.

Scriabin’s wife Tatiana wrote in a 1907 letter that his Piano Sonata No 5 was “extraordinary”. The same can be said of Stephen Hough’s rendition in new release Scriabin & Janácˇek: Sonatas & Poems. Hough opens the album with this musical concoction of chaos and bliss, exhibiting power through his overtly expressive and dynamic performance, before progressing to Janácˇek’s cycle On the Overgrown Path. Though a comparatively delicate work, Hough’s presence isn’t diminished. His performance of A Blown-away Leaf (Book 1, No 2) is a sentimental caress, later offset by a startlingly intense The Frydek Madonna (Book 1, No 4). Scriabin soon returns with a jolt in his Deux Poèmes, Op. 32 – a musical contrast in fine taste which is felt throughout the release as the two composers’ works are interwoven. In fact the differences between Scriabin and Janácˇek grow fainter as the album progresses, with Hough’s musical approach and impeccable performance creating a sense of unity between them. Janácˇek’s Piano Sonata 1.X.1905 is a highlight and, well placed in the latter part of the album, it reveals Hough’s brooding dramaticism, preparing him for a final joyous release… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a…