This remarkable ballet could be seen as the beginning of contemporary dance, so unusual and challenging was the work not only in its music, but in choreography and design.Stravinsky was arguably the most influential composer of the 20th Century. He burst upon the world around the same time as the serialists were preaching their new religion in Vienna. At this distance, we can see that Stravinsky and his descendants have won that culture war handsomely and Firebird has been performed and recorded countless time since. This new recording was made from live performances in the Sydney Opera House and the SSO has its work cut out to find a place among the dozens of other excellent recordings currently available. The shadow of the remarkable recording made 50 years ago by Antal Doráti and the LSO, and Bernstein’s brilliant reading from 1985, hangs over all later recordings. The SSO’s recorded sound is good, although there is some background noise in the quieter passages. Leader, Michael Dauth’s solos are beautiful and fit the ravishing music well. I was generally happy with the performance until we got to the demanding Infernal Dance of Kaschei, one of the show pieces in the work. Here the…

Concerto Armonico is a period instrument ensemble, which like its director the harpsichordist Miklós Spányi, came out of Budapest’s Franz Liszt Academy, where it was formed in 1983. Joined here by co-founder Péter Szu˝ts and keyboardists Tamás Szekendy and Cristiano Holtz, it performs Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s three innovative works for two keyboards and orchestra. This is the 20th and final volume in a highly acclaimed survey of the complete keyboard concertos of CPE Bach (1714-88), and provides a fitting end to such an endeavor in this 300th birthday year of the composer. Throughout, the performances are first-rate, exhibiting the same energy and razor-sharp precision which characterizes those of previous volumes. The program, in which Márta Ábrahám leads an orchestra variously comprising strings, flutes, oboes, horns, trumpets and timpani, opens with one of the last works Bach wrote, the Concerto in E Flat for harpsichord and fortepiano (1788). Here Spányi uses a swell device to muffle his harpsichord so as not to overpower Szekendy’s silvery-toned 1798 Broadwood, and the results are magical. Though this is less a witty, sparkling interplay between two equals than a conversation that rises above the pleasant din of the orchestra and is occasionally interrupted by……

Sixty years on and Benjamin Britten’s The Turn Of The Screw, based on Henry James’s “eerie and scary” ghost novella, is still as taut and dramatically intriguing as ever. The ambiguities and questions still remain for many: Does the Governess actually witness the spirits of sexual predator Peter Quint and his equally possessive offsider Miss Jessel working their evil on her two young charges Miles and Flora or is it all her own deranged fantasy? Whatever you decide – or even if you want to decide – the plot is as powerful as ever, aided by Britten’s sparse and evocative orchestration and Myfanwy Piper’s concise, erotically charged libretto. The use of 16 variations on a theme, which with its rising and falling tonal patterns resembles a threaded screw is a master-stroke. It drives the action along without pause through the prologue and two acts and you don’t need to watch this ever-tightening drama to be snared, as the London Symphony Orchestra’s new two-disc set on its LSO Live label eloquently attests. Recorded at the Barbican last year, conductor Richard Farnes, his 17 musicians and an exceptional cast never let the tension lag throughout the two hours. English tenor Andrew Kennedy…

The first wave of beauty washes over you 44 seconds in. Those dreamy, breathy flutes! The second wave hits at 3 minutes as two siren-like sopranos (of the sailor-luring rather than the whining ambulance variety) echo each other beguilingly. I don’t like to be a quick-draw with words like ‘ravishing’ and ‘beguilingly’, but I see no way around it for Cappella Mediterranea, the Spanish ensemble that has now brought back two works by Michelangelo Favletti (1642-1692) to see the light of day. The Calabrian composer and priest was Maestro di cappella in Palermo before relocating to Messina in Sicily while the city was under Spanish rule, which accounts for the exotic touches of kaval, galoubet pipes, haunting duduk, and bass chalumeau that enrich this premiere recording. This six-voice dialoghi oratorio was composed in 1683. Falvetti draws on the Book of Daniel to relate the story of the three youths condemned by King Nebuchadnezzar to be thrown into a fiery furnace for refusing to worship an idol. There are so many splendid moments one wonders why most of Falvetti’s output was itself consigned to the proverbial flames. From the orchestral prologue’s evocation of the flow of the river Euphrates, to the…

Although critics tend to single out his marathon Piano Concerto in five movements and his magnum opus, the opera Doktor Faust, like Franz Liszt, the vast majority of the Florence-born Feruccio Busoni’s compositional output is devoted to work for the solo piano. It is indeed appropriate that the Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin who specialises in obscure and difficult scores has now turned his gaze on this virtuoso and teacher. Perhaps more than any other composer this side of Henze, Busoni has brought an ingenious balance to bear between Teutonic counterpoint and sunshine and passion from the Mediterranean. Whilst Busoni’s philosophical ideas in the New Aesthetic pair him with the likes of Nietzsche, his musical composition is perhaps not so forward thinking – like Mahler, he still teeters on the edge of tonality whilst suggesting the ideas of Paul Hindemith’s sonatas of the 1930s. Even now pianists, if they approach Busoni, tend to focus on his Bach transcriptions rather than upon original works – though even here we find witty appropriations of English folksong (Greensleeves) and Bizet’s Carmen. Very little of this work has been favoured by modern pianists. The major exception is the Adelaide-born and Dutch-based contrapuntal specialist Geoffrey Douglas Madge…

Pascal Rogé and his wife Ami are no strangers to these shores, having performed at the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in Townsville and in 2011 premiered the Concerto for Two Pianos of Sydney-based composer, Matthew Hindson, commissioned in honour of their wedding. However, the repertoire on this disc is decidedly Gallic and apart from Saint-Saëns’ rarely heard Scherzo, the pieces are two-piano transcriptions of well-known works for orchestra. Herein lies some of the difficulty with this recital. The vivid impressionistic orchestral palette of Debussy and Ravel is so well known to listeners that piano transcriptions can seem somewhat penny plain in comparison to their lavishly orchestrated counterparts. Despite those apparent disadvantages, the performers here give readings of great sensitivity and tonal nuance. Ravel’s Ma Mère l’Oye (Mother Goose) is particularly atmospheric and Debussy’s famous Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun is also well handled. For me, the performers’ own arrangement of La Mer is less successful, again perhaps because it is so well-known as a work for large orchestra. Ravel’s atmospheric Rapsodie Espagnole is familiar in its two-piano incarnation and certainly charms here, while his lesser-known arrangement of Debussy’s sparkling Fêtes is definitely worth getting to know. The thoroughly…

Benjamin Britten’s personal life has been well documented – his relationship with Peter Pears in a period when homosexuality was still illegal, his pacifism and years in America and his friendships and fallings-out. But two documentaries by John Bridcut will rate as indispensable for the full picture of the man – both for the interviews and with the people who knew him best and for their impeccably performed musical excerpts. Britten’s Children is, in the filmmaker’s words, “an edgy subject, full of danger”, these days perhaps even more than ever before. Bridcut’s fascination with the composer started when he took part as a chorister in Britten historic recording of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius. His interviews with the various boys with whom Britten became “besotted” – including the late English actor David Hemmings for whom the role of Miles in The Turn Of The Screw was created – show these relationships to be innocent, if unusual, and without a physical sexual element. In a moving highlight Bridcut tracks down Wulff Scherchen, the German teenager whom Britten dumped for Peter Pears. Scherchen, now a grandfather living in Australia who was willing to be seduced, has kept all of Britten’s love letters is filmed……

No one disputes Martha Argerich’s pre-eminence as a concert pianist but her mercurial style has never really settled into a sustained relationship with the recording studio, so live recordings are prominent in her career – with all the blessings and curses implied by the form. Back in 1978 as a 30-something tearaway, she recorded Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 25 in C, K503, with a Netherlands Chamber Orchestra that never quite matched her virtuosity, making the subsequent release on EMI a little underwhelming. But now, as a cancer survivor in her 70s, she returned to this C Major work at last year’s Lucerne Festival with Claudio Abbado and his Orchestra Mozart in another live recording, but one which has an autumnal feel about it. Tempi, dynamics, and of course the grand maestoso opening all seem about right, but as a whole the first two movements speak of mature masters returning to a loved work in a spirit of authority rather than with the sense of vivacity, inspiration and play that might normally be associated with Mozart in this key. Beautifully balanced in the recording, there’s just something missing, just that spark of inspiration or vigour for which no amount of technical excellence can……

Listeners needn’t worry, the publicity assures us: Baroque specialist Simone Kermes might be singing bel canto but she hasn’t changed voice type. Nor would she need to. There’s no reason why Kermes’ high flying soprano shouldn’t negotiate the trills and roulades of Bellini and Rossini just as skilfully as those of Handel. In terms of clarity and accuracy, she’s in excellent form here, and those who’ve seen her wacky live performances on YouTube will be either relieved or disappointed (according to taste) to discover her in more straight-laced mode. Curiously she sings these arias utterly without vibrato. This might be effective in short doses but applied across the board, it drains much of the life from this spirited music. Make no mistake, Kermes makes a beautiful sound; it just doesn’t ring true to the repertoire, and while she succeeds to an extent in illustrating the stylistic links between Baroque and bel canto, singing Rossini’s Giusto ciel like a piece of lost Pergolesi doesn’t really prove anything. Still, there’s some spectacular vocal showmanship here, including an electrifying Mercadante rarity and two icily precise Queen of the Night arias, and when Monteverdi finally arrives, so does an audible sense of homecoming. Concerto…

Harry Christophers’ current series of Palestrina recordings is very welcome. Given the esteem the composer is accorded not only by the Catholic church but by choristers the world over, it is very odd that there has been little sustained exploration of his output. Perhaps the sheer volume is daunting; with no fewer than 104 masses, let alone a vast corpus of other music besides. The latest instalment in The Sixteen’s cycle presents a Mass, a Magnificat and various other motets associated with the seasons of Advent and Christmas. In the middle of the program we are also given three of Palestrina’s settings from the Song of Songs. This generous selection is delivered with the group’s customary clarity and commitment, mirroring the counter-reformation ideals with which Palestrina is associated. Based on the motet of the same name, the Missa O magnum mysterium is an attractive five-voice work that shows great respect for the liturgical text, presenting sonorous and quietly fervent treatments of the Kyrie and Agnus Dei, while allowing Christmas joy to permeate the upbeat Osanna sections of the Sanctus and Benedictus. The Song of Songs has long had the notoriety of being the bible’s “naughty book”. Palestrina treated these erotic texts in a madrigalian…

When Heifetz told Schoenberg that he could not possibly perform the latter’s Violin Concerto unless his own left hand were to acquire a sixth finger, the composer allegedly replied: “I can wait.” Perhaps a similar sentiment governs the harpsichordist confronted with Handel’s decidedly tricky solo pieces. On paper they might not look overpoweringly difficult; but often they fall awkwardly under the hands, in a manner which Richard Egarr’s impressive booklet essay compares to Brahms’ pianistic style. At least the piano has a sustaining pedal to help out with polyphonic interplay (Glenn Gould, Sviatoslav Richter and Andrei Gavrilov all tackled these works). No such luck with the harpsichord. Besides, stylistic problems – greater than anything in Bach’s English Suites or French Suites – also bedevil the player. How Handelian should they seem, given that their free-and-easy preludes echo the French clavecinistes, and their intricate counterpoint passages do not resemble much in the oratorios or concerti grossi? Altogether it is unsurprising, if regrettable, that (except for everybody’s favourite movement, The Harmonious Blacksmith concluding Suite No 5) this music has been traditionally underestimated. Egarr’s curiously frivolous interpretations seem to me unlikely to win converts. The man has technical brilliance to burn, but he rarely…

Benjamin Britten’s three string quartets are not the only works he wrote for this medium but they are certainly the most important, forming cornerstones of his compositional career. The First, composed in America in 1941, comes from the period when the young composer was still showing off his extraordinary technical prowess. The Second, which concludes with a 15-minute chaconne of Beethovenian depth, was written in the wake of Peter Grimes, while the Third, at the end of his life, quotes from his final opera Death in Venice. Thanks to the recent Britten centenary, several new recordings of his quartets are now on the market, including one by the Endellion Quartet (Warner Classics), and a two-disc set from the Emperor Quartet on the BIS label. The latter boasts detailed and polished performances, but the Takács players trump them in verve and emotional commitment. How well the Takács capture the intensity of the Second Quartet’s Vivace movement, or the power and grandeur of the Chacony’s closing bars. They miss a degree of introversion and nostalgia in the Third Quartet, where Britten – like his friend Shostakovich – uses the medium to make a highly personal statement, in this case one of farewell….