Until the 1980s Johann Adolf Hasse remained a historical footnote – a famous and prolific opera composer in his day of whom one had hardly heard a note. Then in 1986, William Christie made a landmark recording of Cleofide with an exotic line up of four counter-tenors and he was gradually rediscovered. Fast-forward to today and counter-tenors are superstars and major labels release whole recitals of Hasse – who’d have thought?  Max Emanuel Cencic was first heard as first boy on Solti’s 1991 Die Zauberflöte and has since developed into one of those aforesaid superstars. This superb recital includes seven world premiere recordings plus a mandolin concerto for instrumental interlude. Cencic’s voice is one of the richest around today with a gleaming top, a fulsome but firm bottom register and his technical facility is spectacular yet always beautifully expressive. His fiorature runs are cleanly articulated but always maintain a legato line with no nasty aspirates.  The accompaniments are bold, energetic yet elegant and technically immaculate; intonation is spot on. Theodoros Kitsos plays the mandolin concerto with limpid tone. The recording is close but not annoyingly so and wonderfully firm and weighty. Hasse’s arias rival Handel for invention but the whole…

Haydn entered the lucrative market for British national song arrangements during his last years in London, churning out 400 or so to satisfy the craze of the day, but as a man of integrity he refused to skimp on craftsmanship and care – these are natural beauties and though dressed for an outing in society they do give an inkling of their humble origins.  The modest selection offered here is culled from his more elaborate piano trio arrangements. The program is arranged as if for a domestic evening’s entertainment with the movements of Haydn’s Piano Trio No 43 interspersed to show off the talents of the fine instrumentalists; the artistry here is no doubt way beyond the capabilities of the intended performers of the day.  The German tenor Werner Güra is one the finest lieder singers of our time (his Die Schöne Mullerin is an overlooked gem, and a bargain) and brings his elegant musicianship and customary diction and care for word painting to bear (however the dialect requires one to keep the texts handy for reference). His period accompanists are first class with lovely sounding instruments including a superbly restored Collard & Collard fortepiano. A scholarly essay graces an…

The music composed by Steven Isserlis's grandfather has its moment, but in the overall scheme of things, is pretty minor stuff.

Formed in 2006, Melbourne-based trio Ensemble Liaison comprises cellist Svetlana Bgosavljevic, clarinettist David Griffiths and pianist Timothy Young. The trio, which has previously recorded for Melba Records and Tall Poppies, is well-known for collaborating and partners to date have included Emma Matthews, Tony Gould and members of the Australian Ballet.  But every performance is a collaboration and such is the case here, where not only do we have arrangements of arrangements like this version of Grainger’s Blithe Bells – there are also more straightforward versions of songs originally written for voice and piano, where either the clarinet or the cello takes the voice part. Britten’s arrangement of The Salley Gardens or Falla’s Suite Populaire Espagnole are two examples – though the three instruments come together for the final Jota of the latter work. Elsewhere, first one instrument then another takes the melody – as in The Last Rose of Summer – or the cello, say, takes a more accompanying role – as in Gershwin’s The Man I Love.  But it’s the performances themselves which really stand out. One has only to hear Bgosavljevic’s impassioned reading of Ravel’s Kaddisch or Griffiths’ artful negotiations between the lyrical and the raucous in Kovács Sholem-alekhem,…

This companion box to last year’s excellent Westminster Chamber Music set is far less consistent in quality, and contains more recordings from the small but adventurous Westminster Company of the 1950s and 60s. While containing many items of interest and some fascinating performances, sound quality or standards of execution often relegate these versions to secondary status.  For example, Hermann Scherchen was a galvanising conductor whose wide repertoire included Beethoven, Mahler, Glière’s Symphony No 3 (Ilya Muromets) and Bach’s B Minor Mass, all represented here, but he is often let down by the loose ensemble and less-than-uniform intonation of the Vienna Opera Orchestra. They are best in Haydn Symphonies. A disc featuring the London Symphony Orchestra of 1962 (with Marriner among the violins) establishes Pierre Monteux’s conception of Berlioz’s Romeo and Juliet with no problems. Monteux makes the later scenes with Friar Laurence (David Ward) unusually convincing, but the Vienna orchestra is sloppy in the accompanying Symphonie Fantastique under René Liebowitz. The Royal Philharmonic is in another class altogether, playing Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, Symphony No 4 and Violin Concerto for Artur Rodzinski. They had to be: Rodzinski reputedly conducted with a loaded pistol at his side.  We’re on stronger ground with solo…

Jules Massenet has an unfair reputation for sentimentality at the expense of originality – perhaps the legacy of becoming the heir of Meyerbeer. Maybe his most enduring operatic works, the lengthy, and at times sugary Manon and the overwrought Werther are partly to blame, exposing him at his most emotionally heart on sleeve. Massenet at his best, however, could be nearly as masterful an orchestrator as Bizet and almost as original as Chabrier. For those prepared to delve deeper there are delights in store, as this delicious French soufflé of a disc from Neeme Järvi and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande amply demonstrates.  We start on familiar ground with the sparkling, Spanish-inflected ballet music from the opera El Cid. The orchestra is absolutely spot on with stunning woodwind solos (listen to the flute in the twinkling Aubade) and rattling castanets aplenty. The Estonian-born Järvi corrals his forces as if to the chateau born. The final Scènes Pittoresques are similarly joyfully realised.  In between come the rarities. The most fascinating is the very fine Fantaisie for cello (the only other recording in the catalogue being Richard Bonynge’s with the same orchestra). It’s a cracking work that deserves to be in…

Even though his father Franz had played horn in the premieres in several of Wagner’s operas, the old man was not a fan of Herr Richard’s music dramas. His son, the composer Richard Strauss, would hold a similar position until his late teens when he discovered the piano score for Tristan and Isolde and he would prove a master of the orchestral tone poem and lieder before writing his first opera – the Wagnerian pastiche, Guntram – around his 30th birthday. However it was not until his third work in the field – Salome (1905), after Oscar Wilde’s notorious play – that he would have a major success de scandale with many productions being rapidly presented across Europe.  With this and his take on the classical tale of Elektra a few years later, Strauss would electrify audiences while balancing precariously on the edge of tonality. However he would suddenly pull back to celebrate his other major influence, Mozart, and with the likes of Ariadne auf Naxos and particularly Der Rosenkavalier, he would create the much loved dramas wherein his unique ability to write for the female voice would shine, creating a template for the rest of his operatic output amounting…

This fascinating program replicates the second half of a charity concert given by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach in Hamburg on Palm Sunday 1786 (the first half comprised the Sanctus from his father’s B Minor Mass and excerpts from Handel’s Messiah) and this recording was made to celebrated the 300th anniversary of the composer’s birth and serve as a sampler of the various styles of “the New Bach”.  His Magnificat from 1749 typifies his Janus-like profile in 18th-century music looking back to the High Baroque style and closely following the formal plan of his father’s 1723 example with a similar sequence of choruses, solo arias and duets, yet throwing open the shutters of dusty old tradition and letting the musical light of ‘Reason’ flood in.  The bustling Italianate style is overlaid with a cleaner vocal line that looks ahead to the later Classical manner yet still incorporates those exuberant curlicues of ornament that were once condemned by some as mere Rococo fluff.  One catches the occasional glimpse of the Empfindsamkeit sensibility for which he is famed in the Magnificat, but those sudden flickers of changing mood are at their most distilled strength in the D Major Symphony with its quirky harmonic…

Hoang Pham is a young pianist of Vietnamese background who studied in Australia and subsequently the US. He now has an international career, appearing frequently in America and Europe. In 2013 he gave a series of recitals in Melbourne, one of which is preserved in this live recording.  Pham’s program is formidable: Beethoven’s Pathétique, Scriabin’s Poème and Sonata No 9 (Black Mass), Bach’s Partita No 2 and, last but not least, Liszt’s Petrarch Sonnet and Dante Sonata from the Second Year of Pilgrimage (Italy).  At first I thought one of the less often played Beethoven sonatas would have been a smarter choice, however, this is a fresh and first-rate performance of the Pathétique. The drama of the first movement is well paced, the cantabile of the second movement affecting, and the finale exhilarating. The contrasting works by Scriabin are possibly the highlight of the recital. Pham presents the composer’s rigorous, highly chromatic late Sonata with great clarity of line.  He is clearly a pianist who relishes the Romantic tradition, once again emphasising the lyrical side of Liszt’s Petrarch Sonnet (a piano transcription of an earlier song) and plunging fearlessly into the pianistic rhetoric of the Dante Sonata. If this piece…

When late in life, Saint-Saëns heard music by York Bowen he commented that “He is the most remarkable of the young British composers.” Bowen’s flower blossomed between the wars, but timing is everything and as a ‘Romantic’ composer he fell victim (along with many others) to changes in taste and a musical revolution that marginalised a generation of composers worldwide. Bowen is only now re-emerging and to judge by the fine music on this CD, not before time.  The disc opens with his Clarinet Sonata. The languorous theme rolls out elegantly, the scherzo is cheeky and the final movement allows the clarinet to range widely against Benjamin Frith’s energetic pianism. Robert Plane’s creamy clarinet tone is perfect.  The impressive Rhapsody Trio begins mysteriously and moves beautifully into a conversation between instruments. Describing music can be the very devil, so if I add the phrase ‘intelligent romanticism,’ I hope you will understand. The unfinished Piano Trio from 1900 is splendid, with a strong melody in the final section.  The Phantasy Quintet, in seven sections, is written for string quartet and bass clarinet, giving the music a haunting quality as well as a distinguishing texture. However, by the time I got to…

Adrian Chandler has always been a wiz when it comes to programming which satisfies both musically and historically. As his ensemble’s name suggests (La Serenissima is another name for the Republic of Venice), the Mersyside-born violinist takes Vivaldi’s music as a focal point, exploring his concertos and sonatas in relation to those of contemporaneous composers.  The present release demonstrates how Vivaldi’s style changed under Neapolitan influence. Of the three violin concertos, Chandler suggests one was “probably intended for theatrical purposes”; the other two likewise show less reliance on Vivaldi’s trademark ritornello structure and a greater preoccupation with bel canto. In between the concertos are arias from three Vivaldi operas.  Performances are beyond compare. If Sally Bruce-Payne’s vocal contributions display a grasp of the relationship between surface virtuosity and profound theatricality, the same could be said of Chandler’s. An intelligent, dramatic use of colour, dynamics, articulation, bowing and extempore embellishment has always been a feature of his style, and one finds it here in abundance, not only in his own playing but in that of La Serenissima. If Italian ensembles such as Il Giardino Armonico once led the way in reclaiming their baroque heritage, English bands like La Serenissima are mounting…

In his native China, Yundi is as close to a pop star as a classical musician can get, with millions of Twitter followers, screaming fans, and sold-out tours. On hearing this fresh and sometimes even inspired performance of the venerable old Emperor Concerto, it’s easy to understand the fuss. Of course having Daniel Harding conduct the Berlin Philharmonic is a huge bonus, his tempi generally quick but never sounding rushed, and with the whole thing having a sense of excitement. But from the moment Yundi himself enters with that famous theme, it’s clear that this is a young soloist who really has the goods, oddly enough, without affectation or mannerism – just lovely clear, musical insight and a singing, legato line. And then there’s the slow movement, which really is so rapt in mood and played with such poetic lyricism that you not only start falling in love with it all over again but even consider comparing Yundi’s spell-binding performance with that of the greats. The coupling, though, is rather unusual, Schumann’s solo-piano Fantasie in C Major, presumably there for a good reason but it’s one that’s not immediately apparent. Good enough in itself, Schumann’s three-movement classic, which originated in…