This is the sort of ‘spicy’ that doesn’t interfere with polite dinner conversation. Les Passions de l’Âme, the Swiss early music group comprising members of the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and other illustrious ensembles, have put together a charming program of 17th-century Austrian music that was, thematically at least, a little out of the ordinary during its time. The three composers use the violin to tell stories about life and nature, while exploring its mimetic and technical capabilities. Biber’s Sonata Representativa is the best known here; Meret Lüthi’s sweet-toned solo imitates a clucking hen and a yowling cat with double stopping, tuning and pitch effects. Biber himself was a virtuoso violinist and one really feels the brilliant sense of play and curiosity (which, in this case, didn’t seem to kill the cat). The violin transforms into a sword for Schmelzer’s balletto Die Fechtschule or The Fencing School, in which stately dance forms are given zest as the agile solo part weaves, lunges and attacks. Composers cross swords in Schmelzer’s Battle Against the Turks, based on one of Biber’s Mystery Sonatas. It’s the most ‘exotic’ moment on the album: irresistible tambourine and darabuka percussion (especially in the syncopated Posta turcica), oriental scales…

I found this CD puzzling, but a friend described it as a “marquee” issue – a showcase for the Australian Chamber Orchestra and director, Richard Tognetti. The main courses are the first movement of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and the first movement of Brahms’ First Symphony. The rest of the program is a Bach violin concerto and two other short excerpts. I’m at a loss to understand why anyone would want to hear just the first movement of the Beethoven or the Brahms. Surely it would have made more sense to issue a double CD featuring both in their entirety.  Tognetti’s way with the concerto is admirable. Without sounding rushed, he keeps it moving while retaining the monumental grandeur. His is an unfailingly sweet-toned reading with plenty of animation. The Brahms is similarly flowing, eschewing the granitic approach of Klemperer and Furtwängler. I recently saw Tognetti’s Brahms Fourth. His conducting gestures were infrequent, but the results were stunning: the ACO’s ensemble was tight and the heft of just 48 players was amazing. This is not quite as impressive but I’d still like to hear the entire performance as the textures are admirably lucid with just the right quotient of bounce or schwung…

Richard Egarr sets out to push boundaries while staying within the confines of historically informed music-making. Here he’s got our limited concept of the symphony in his sights, and has put together a program that demonstrates the enormous diversity and rapid development of the genre from Handel to Haydn. It’s an instructive journey: already you can hear the germ of the symphony in the Sinfonia from Handel’s oratorio Saul (1738), while the Grande Simphonie No 7 by Franz Xavier Richter (c.1740) and Stamitz’s Sinfonia in D (c.1750) demonstrate the stylistic and technical revolutions that were taking place at the famed Mannheim Court at the time.  Mozart’s Symphony No 1, composed when he was just eight-years-old, reflects not only the influence of Mannheim but that of JC Bach; finally, one of Haydn’s masterpieces, the Symphony No 49 (La Passione) epitomises the Sturm und Drang style of sharply contrasting extremes of emotion, thus prefiguring Beethoven. The AAM are perfect advocates, their playing crisp and light yet virtuosic and given to extravagant gestures where the musical rhetoric demands it. This is most evident in the Mannheim works, where the loudest fortissimo and the quietest pianissimo are rendered with painterly skill amid a hail…

Jonathan Nott’s Mahler 6 joins the ranks of good but not great readings of this behemoth. The main tempo of the opening movement (with repeat observed) conveys much of the frenetic grimness that depicts the dire determination of someone setting out on a journey he knows will not be easy. I still think the legendary Barbirolli version (45 years young and recorded when performances of this work were rarities) gets the initial Allegro just right: the schleppend or “dragging” sensation makes the opening even grimmer. Pappano does it equally well in his recent version. Nott’s not afraid to achieve a slow motion quality in the celeste-driven “dream sequence”. The expansiveness never robs the movement of power. The scherzo (rightly, in my opinion, placed second) maintains the momentum and seems to describe a malevolent troupe of marionettes before it peters out like a clockwork toy. The Andante, the real emotional heart of the work, is taken moderately, the faux naïve tone fraught with dark undercurrents. The climax is impressive. The final movement, an entire universe in itself, is superbly handled, catapulting the Bambergers into the realm of virtuoso German ensembles. My only grumble is that the hammer blows (two here) lack the sickening dullness…

Handel’s Serse of 1738 with its buffo elements and fast moving structure baffled the critics of the day who singularly failed to recognise Handel’s dramaturgical innovations; it was dismissed by some as a mere “ballad”opera and Charles Burney took him to task for reinstating the tragicomedic that had been banished from opera seria. Relying less on the static three-part da capo aria in favour of short snappy one-movement numbers it suits the light, nimble touch of Christian Curnyn and the Early Opera Company whose excellence in this field is a known quantity and the cast is ideal. Anna Stéphany is superb in the title pants-role, caressing the ear in moments of contemplation yet with sufficient metal in the voice to suggest the warrior king without going over the top and turning the character into a basket-case – her Se Bramante d’amar is a lesson in dramatic projection. Rosemary Joshua’s Romilda is her father’s child with nobility in the voice yet also a vulnerable femininity while her beau David Daniels is as strapping and heroic as a counter-tenor can manage. Thankfully the more comic characters are played relatively straight; Brindley Sherratt avoids conventional bluster as the soldier prince Ariodate, Hilary Summers…

  Monteverdi is celebrated for bringing opera to birth, but his extraordinary creativity also saw the gradual dissolving of the stylistic boundaries between sacred and secular music. Here we have a pleasantly varied sample of Monteverdi’s secular music, drawn from the later books of madrigals and some well known operatic items. Two of the items, the arresting Toccata from Orfeo and the vivacious Chiome d’oro from the Seventh Book of Madrigals, were ‘recycled’ as sacred pieces. One of the themes running through this selection is, as the booklet note puts it, “the sweet pains of love”. The most intense expressions of painful love are found in three laments. Lasciatemi morire, the only surviving music from the opera Arianna, was reworked as a five-part madrigal in which Arianna’s pain is intensified by some wonderful dissonances. A Dio, Roma from The Coronation of Poppea is movingly sung by Sarah Connolly while Lamento della Ninfa (one of the first laments over a descending bass) moves and impresses by gaining maximum impact from so little material. Charles Daniels sings Possente spirito, the famous tour de force from Orfeo with great agility and empathy, expertly accompanied by a phalanx of cornetts. The prologue from Orfeo…

Glamorous German violinist Julia Fischer looks like a thoroughly modern classical celebrity, but in recital her repertoire is in the grand tradition of the mid-20th century when programs never seemed complete without Tartini’s Devil’s Trill Sonata, Ravel’s Tzigane and works by the subject of Fischer’s fifth Decca CD, the 19th-century Spanish showman Sarasate. These dazzling works, composed at a time when Sarasate rivalled Joachim as Europe’s finest violinist, make great showstoppers and encores, but what’s surprising is how satisfying they turn out to be in their own right. Beginning with a couple of Spanish dances, it’s apparent from the get-go how effortlessly the 30-year-old masters the technical challenges of works designed to leave jaws on floor. She sounds like she’s having fun, and why wouldn’t she, especially in Zigeunerweisen, whose czárdás rhythm allows Fischer and accompanist Milana Chernyavska to demonstrate how convincingly a German and a Ukrainian can perform Spanish music inspired by Hungarian gypsies. The highlight, though, is the Serenata Andaluza, whose opening raises expectations of Bizet’s Carmen wandering in, but then transforms into one of those million-miles- an-hour extravaganzas of the kind that prompted George Bernard Shaw to say Sarasate’s music “left criticism gasping miles behind him”. Amen…

  Recorded live in January 2012, this recital from London’s legendary chamber music venue, The Wigmore Hall, contains some beautiful playing; the intimacy of the performances are not just down to the remarkable collaboration between these two fine artists, but are also due to the excellent acoustics of the hall itself. Unlike so many modern recordings, the music doesn’t sound as if it were being played in a large bathroom. The details are as clear as a bell, and the sound is simply gorgeous. The “lullabies to my sorrows”, was how Brahms melancholically described his set of three intermezzi, opus 109. They are quiet, introspective works and perfectly written in his late romantic style. In this concert, this is the pianist’s solo outing and she plays the music beautifully but with some detachment. Not typical Brahms played in the way that we usually expect. The Sonata for Cello and Piano No 1 is a much more robust and substantial work, ranging over a wide, romantic canvas and is here grandly performed by both soloists. The opening movement of Bach’s Pastoral in F is an arrangement of an organ piece and thought to have been written around 1720 in Leipzig. This arrangement…

  There aren’t many pianists with the Beethoven pedigree of Rudolf Buchbinder. Now in his mid-60s, the former wunderkind who entered the Vienna Hochschule at age 5 has recorded two cycles of both sonatas and concertos, this most recent live set of concertos appearing on DVD two years ago to enthusiastic reviews. If Buchbinder in the studio can be a little studied, these live performances are sparked with more life. Anything but a ‘personality’ player, you sense Buchbinder’s much happier poring over Beethoven’s original markings rather than laying on the showmanship and emotion for excitable fans. And instead of the luscious warm string sounds that Barenboim unleashes in the same repertoire, Buchbinder goes instead for the intimacy and almost chamber-music textures of a smaller band. This is both a strength and a weakness. It’s a very ‘musicianly’ approach and one that will be appreciated by all who like their Beethoven affectation-free, interpreted with intelligence and good taste. But the live recorded sound to some ears will be less than scintillating, adding a dourness that the performances themselves, suitably animated in the First, lyrical in the Third and Fourth, and imposing in the Emperor, don’t actually possess. This is late-night Beethoven, to be……

Hungarian composer Peter Eötvös has plenty of operatic experience having produced versions of Angels in America and Chekov’s Three Sisters. His 2008 setting of a short story by Gabriel Garcia Márquez, then, might seem to promise more, but despite this excellent Glyndebourne cast recording giving it every opportunity to land, it remains peculiarly elusive and, for all it’s South American colour, a slightly drab affair. The story concerns the increasingly obsessive love of a priest for a 12-year-old girl suspected of contracting rabies after being bitten by a dog. Oddly, her age appears not to be an issue here, and sung by the capable Allison Bell, she simply comes across as a young woman – albeit one given to a good old scream now and again. There’s a greater tension between the world of the local ‘natives’, accused by the Catholic hierarchy of superstition, and the harsh attempts by the Bishop and Abbess to exorcise Sierva’s ‘demon’. Perhaps the problem is that the short story is just that – short. The characters lack background and relationships are sketchy. The libretto is skillfully adapted, but too often the score seems to drift along when it should seize the dramatic possibilities. Many…

Dating from the 1730s, Bach’s four short Mass settings are the red-headed stepchildren of his choral output. Several Bach scholars have actively belittled them as “mindless” (Philipp Spitta in the 19th century) and “quite nonsensical” (Albert Schweitzer). Moreover, they contain abundant recycling of cantata movements not always perfectly suited to their new Latin words. Still, now that they have attracted such significant directors as Konrad Junghänel (Harmonia Mundi) and Philippe Herreweghe (Virgin Classics), competition in this repertoire is quite tough. Harry Christophers uses just two voices per part, a practice inherently neither good nor bad. In churches, even one-voice-per-part choirs can often convey unexpected vigour. Yet too frequently in a recording context, a tiny choir necessitates damping down the orchestral contribution, neutralising genuine drama, as opposed to mere indiscriminate briskness. So here. Junghänel, with forces comparable in size, obtains a spectrum of vocal and instrumental colours to which Christophers seems indifferent, allowing his musicians, in comparison with these impressive rival versions, to sound unduly genteel. The appropriately robust horn-players briefly heard in BWV233 appear to have wandered in from a different and more impassioned performance.  Elsewhere, one might as well be listening to a robust Vivaldi opera as to anything…

Given its modest yet beguiling tone, it’s easy to forget the classical guitar is capable of painting a universe far beyond its actual sound-making capabilities. To fall under its spell is to enter a realm of ambiguity and suggestion; in other words, the classical guitar is the most poetic of instruments. So when 19th-century masters of the instrument Augustín Barrios, Francisco Tárrega, Caspar Joseph Mertz and the 20th-century composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco choose to pay homage to, respectively, Montevideo’s cathedral, Verdi’s opera La Traviata and the Alhambra, Schubert’s lieder and the music of Boccherini, there is no real paradox.  Even if you aren’t familiar with the source material, you have your imagination to fill in the gaps. This is music that succeeds on its own terms but also points to a richer domain that, thanks to evocative writing, is immediately accessible.  Of course, the quality of the interpretations must bear some of the responsibility for such a mysterious transference, and that’s where talented Austrian guitarist Armin Egger comes in. Whether it’s in Barrios’ melancholy, nostalgic waltzes and organ-evoking La catedral, Tárrega’s rippling Recuerdos de la Alhambra, Mertz’s virtuosic fantasy on The Flying Dutchman or Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s quirky evocation of a bygone era,…