Following up his last collaboration with René Jacobs, a fine Handel recital, Bejun Mehta here presents an intelligent survey of early classical arias. While the great reformer Gluck inevitably opens the programme with the delicious Che purio ciel! from Orfeo ed Euridice, his neglected rival Traetta at last gets his moment in the sun; a scene from his Ifigenia in Tauride in which a slumbering Oreste is tormented by a chorus of Furies is the high point of the recital. Another delight is Se il fulmine sospendi from Gluck’s Ezio and the album fittingly concludes with an aria from that early glimpse of Mozart’s operatic genius Mitridate. Mehta’s voice might not have the beauty of Scholl (in his prime), nor the brilliance of Jaroussky, nor the flash of Hansen but he trumps them in his intensity of dramatic projection, incisive attack and vivid colouring of text. Mention is made in the booklet of the realistic acting innovations of David Garrick as taken up by the castrato Guadagni; the spirit of whom Bejun Mehta seems to be channelling here. Maybe it’s a consequence of the artificiality of the falsetto technique but with so many counter-tenors currently on the scene there is…

John Adams probably wouldn’t like to be hailed the Benjamin Britten of his generation any more than he likes being called a minimalist. But with his 2012 Passion oratorio based on Bach, the American composer follows Britten in proving himself not only as a master orchestrator, but also as composer of the most striking and politically potent vocal music of his time. He also has in common with his British predecessor his gravitation towards earth-shattering historical events with a deeply compassionate response to human tragedies – the September 11 threnody On the Transmigration of Souls and the respectfully handled Israel-Palestine discourse in The Death of Klinghoffer, the latter also based loosely on the Passions of Bach. This two-hour work for large forces, including cimbalom and no fewer than three counter-tenors, features a libretto (drawn from Old and New Testament and poems on faith and liberty) by Peter Sellars, who collaborated with Adams on Nixon in China and staged The Gospel last year – “told not by Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, but rather according to the other John and Peter,” quipped the Los Angeles Times critic. (In fact, events are related in a fascinating new light by the mezzo-soprano soloist…

This superb recital could as easily have been entitled “Jakobean” Lute Music, so complete is London-based Swedish lutenist Jakob Lindberg’s mastery of this music. Equally at home in the Spanish, Italian and Germanic lute repertoire – his Weiss is particularly fine – he has for some decades been one of the foremost interpreters of the Elizabethan and Jacobean lute repertoire. Only Paul O’Dette comes close to matching Lindberg’s combination of stylistic flair and technical ability. One need only compare their respective interpretations of the music of Daniel Bacheler: both players capture to perfection the insouciance of the virtuosic sets of variations and the profundity of the slower pavans and preludes. By the time James I became king in 1603 the lute was well established as the courtly instrument par excellence, and composer/performers of quality and imagination were legion. Apart from Bacheler there was Thomas Robinson, Cuthbert Hely, Robert Johnson, Jacques Gaultier, and the great John Dowland. Together with that most prolific of composers, anon, all the above are represented by typical dance movements such as the pavan, galliard, gigue, courante and sarabande, as well as improvisatory preludes and sets of variations on popular tunes. Performing on his restored Sixtus Rawolf…

Recorded live at Melbourne Recital Centre’s intimate performance space the Salon, this inventive program of compositions, elaborations, improvisations and collaborations seems purpose-built for late-night listening of the more sophisticated variety. Built around pianist Tony Gould and cellist Imogen Manins’ musical meanderings (in a good way) and conversations, Such a Sky explores written and improvised responses to various composers’ works in different styles and through varying textures, the latter lent more variety by the duo’s fellow performers. Thus vocalist Gian Slater lends a lissome, spectral quality to the folklike title track, in which Manins takes off from the song Who Will Buy? From Lionel Bart’s Oliver!; this same disembodied quality is also present as Slater’s looped voice is used as a drone in an effective arrangement of Michael Atherton’s Shall We Dream?, originally for children’s choir. In Gould’s appropriately bluesy setting of WH Auden’s Funeral Blues Slater is more visceral and affecting. Slava Grigoryan’s guitar brings welcome colour and texture to Manins and Gould’s freely expressive playing in three works, two of which – Claus Ogerman’s Valse and Gould’s Johann & Igor – are based on the music of JS Bach (the other is Jobim’s song, Luiza). Colour and texture, but…

Earlier in the year the Swedish label BIS released a lovely album of Mozart featuring the talented Russian oboist Alexei Ogrintchouk. Now comes the perfect companion with the latest release from clarinet star Martin Fröst. The disc is timed to coincide with Fröst’s return to this country for a tour with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. When he came two seasons ago audiences were knocked out by his virtuosity, which includes circular breathing techniques, as well as his remarkable ability to play and dance at the same time. This limpid quality is perfectly illustrated on this album which combines the popular concerto with the Kegelstatt trio for clarinet, viola and piano and the Allegro for clarinet and string quartet. For the concerto Fröst has chosen the version for basset clarinet, an instrument with additional notes in the lower range. Although the work began life as a concerto for basset horn, Mozart transposed it to A for this special instrument. Fröst recorded the concerto in 2010 on a modern basset clarinet. He uses the more familiar ‘B Flat’ instrument for the other pieces on the disc. Playing is superb throughout, both from the soloist, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and the chamber musicians…

If there existed a prize for the World-Famous Composer Whom We Falsely Supposed We Knew, Gounod would win it at a canter. Take away Faust, the Funeral March for a Marionette (immortalised by Alfred Hitchcock), the Bach-derived Ave Maria, and how much Gounod have most of us heard? Singularly little. Even his Messe Solennelle and O Divine Redeemer, beloved during the early 20th century, have largely faded from general consciousness. Yet never fear, Hyperion is here, giving us not just utterly obscure Gounod pieces but an utterly obscure instrument: the pedal-piano (usually called pédalier in France and Pedalflügel in Germany), which once inspired enthusiasm in Schumann, Alkan, and Franck. Equipped with an organ-style pedal-board as well as standard piano keys, the pédalier emerged recently on an Olivier Latry disc where the tinny, clattering, bar-room sound largely defeated this reviewer. Hyperion’s pédalier has a much more attractive tone, and incorporates two Steinway grand pianos – the annotations explain the Rube-Goldberg-like procedures involved – to produce handsome results. Compared with a conventional piano, the timbre remains on the dry side. Nevertheless the outcome proves unfailingly musical, which chez Latry it assuredly was not.  No-one would credit this repertoire with consistent brow-furrowing profundity,…

  After just two instalments in his projected seven-opera Mozart cycle, Rolando Villazón has taken a premature diversion a collection of obscure Mozart concert arias that he found in a Munich music shop. As he’s demonstrated already in Cosi fan tutte and Don Giovanni, Villazón is a persuasive Mozart advocate, but he needs all that skill and enthusiasm to make this grab-bag of juvenilia, rejects and odd-jobs hold together. The opening of the aria Aura che intorno spiri must be one of the greatest opening phrases in all Mozart, but the sublimity is intermittent. Many arias hint at genius and then faff about in a stop-start demonstration of genius almost at work. The most intriguing are Con ossequio, con rispetto and La spoco deluso, where one could speculate that Rossini built his career out of Mozart’s reject bin. The earliest aria, Va, dal furor portata, is gob-smacking when judged by the standards of 9-year-old composers, but compared with the Mozart of 20 years later, it’s scarcely must-have. Just how far Mozart progressed during the intervening period is demonstrated in the only German language inclusion, Musst ich auch durch taussend Drachen, sounding so much more mature and dramatic in intent, and…

    Just as the guitar is accustomed to finding itself “between worlds”, popping up in almost every imaginable genre of music, so too has the mandolin long held a place in the hearts of musicians from folk, popular and classical genres – for the latter, just think of Vivaldi and Beethoven’s wonderful works. But contemporary mandolinists like Chris Thile and present artist Avi Avital are taking things to a whole new level, performing Bach with a facility and sensitivity that would put many violinists to shame. This time round, Israeli-born Avital tackles different folk traditions, albeit from a classical perspective – hence the recording’s title. And while much here will be familiar – Bartók’s Roumanian Folk Dances or Villa Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras No 5 – there are also less well-known works such as Sulkhan Tsintsadze’s Miniatures On Georgian Folk Themes. But whether it’s Bloch, Monti, Dvorˇák, Falla or Piazzolla, the performances and arrangements here are so fresh and novel that everything sounds new. Of course it helps that Avital is joined by a formidable line-up of soloists, including harpist Caitlin Finch, accordionist and fellow Bach exponent Richard Galliano and klezmer virtuoso clarinetist Giora Feidman. And that the different instrumental…

Following his homage to the people’s tenor Maria Lanza, it makes sense for Calleja to come up with a recital ranging from Leoncavallo and Tosti to Morricone and Edith Piaf. Although there are songs in no less than six languages, the Maltese tenor is obviously most at home in his mother tongue, Italian. Many critics have commented on the ‘golden-age’ quality of his voice, his ease of production and his wish to remain a man of the people. However for all of the ease and honeyed legato, one often yearns for geater involvement with the text. One also wishes more care had been taken in the choice of repertoire and the lush orchestrations. The sheer beauty of the voice is almost enough to justify Time to Say Goodbye but the rounded Italianate vowels are too much for as simple a tune as You Raise Me Up. Similarly Piaf’s La Vie en Rose remains an odd choice as it is so strongly associated with the feminine (though here his French vowels are far more agreeably idiomatic). Equally odd is the vocal take on the Adagio from Rodrigo’s Concerto De Aranjuez though it’s nice to hear Calleja in Spanish. His German and…

Given the period instruments this may not be the definite recording of Beethoven’s intimate music for cello, but it’s certainly up there with the likes of Fournier and Rostropovich.

This set contains recordings made between 1993 and 1996 and includes most of the major orchestral works by the short-lived late Romantic Max Reger (1873-1916). Missing are the Violin Concerto, the Hiller Variations and the early Sinfonietta. However, two sets of variations on themes by Mozart and Beethoven are included, each closing with a monumental fugue. Reger was renowned as an organist, and his orchestration is conceived in organ terms: sections predominate rather than individual instrumental colours. Segerstam’s disciplined and refined performances, spaciously recorded, emphasise this. The conductor is demonstrably attuned to Reger’s style in two expressionistic works. The first is virtually a single-movement symphony, entitled Symphonic Prologue to a Tragedy (1908); the second, a series of tone-pictures inspired by paintings by Böcklin. With his restless chromatic sequences, Reger sometimes takes so long getting to the point that you wonder if there is any point at all. This certainly applies to the 45-minute Piano Concerto of 1910, which is Brahms on steroids. It demands musicians who revel in larger-than-life romantic gestures. Pianist Love Derwinger understands this, and makes a more convincing case for the work than the emotionally detached Marc-André Hamelin on a recent Hyperion disc. This is good value…

Ray Chen’s rise to fame since winning the Menuhin competition in 2008 has been meteoric and with a musical endorsement from Maxim Vengerov and a sartorial deal with Giorgio Armani, he’s sounding and looking like the full classical celebrity package. This sparkling Mozart collaboration will only enhance the Taiwanese-born, Brisbane-raised violinist’s formidable reputation. In Mozart’s two concertos, he checks-in his fashion-blogs and Italian Vogue clothes-horse poses at the studio door, and delivers everything that one could want, two performances that sing and play and dance with effortless style and real joy. True, everything in the mix is weighted toward the soloist, and the solo wind players of Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival Orchestra might feel gipped that they sound like they’re playing out-the-corridor-and-down-the-steps, but when Chen simply caresses the openings to those heavenly slow movements, no one’s going to care about the support act. Here’s true star-power – one of those recordings that grips you and makes you happy, even when Chen’s own cadenzas sound more ‘fresh’ than convincing. Eschenbach then turns accompanist in a less ‘present’ recording but equally fine performance of the Violin Sonata in A, K305, a foretaste of what can be expected when Chen tours Australia with Timothy…