A mere five years younger than Richard Strauss, Hans Pfitzner has had a problematic history as Michael Kater has amply suggested in his books on music under the Third Reich. A Romantic conservative, Pfitzner remained firmly associated with the musical trends of his youth (Brahms and Schumann) and given his vacillating anti-Semitism, has remained persona non grata. His only regularly performed work has remained the opera Palestrina, its three Preludes with their scintillating use of age-old modes keeping his name alive within the orchestral repertoire. The three cello concertos are very attractive in their way but conservative in composition, and in all of them the soloist Alban Gerhardt, Sebastian Weigle and the ever reliable Berlin Radio Symphony are equally responsible for maintaining a perfect balance between the cello and its accompanying orchestral forces. The opening concerto in A Minor is a student work criticised by his teachers and lost during his lifetime, only receiving its premiere in 1977. Perhaps the best of the works is the often delicate G Major concerto Op. 42 which was written for the virtuoso Cassado with assured writing that never drowns the soloist. There is an earlier CPO recording of these concerti with David Geringas…

Across the whole collection we hear Te Kanawa’s sweet and creamy tone and her famed ability to bring her characters to life

Quite why the two works on this disc get fewer outings than some of the better-known passions and cantatas is a bit of a mystery. The Actus Tragicus is an early work, admittedly, but its craftsmanship and profound sense of musical communion (in this case an outpouring of grief, possibly connected to the death of a family member or friend) singles it out as one of Bach’s most touching essays in choral music. Scored for two recorders, a pair of violas da gamba and chamber organ, it has a gentle air of consolation captured perfectly in John Eliot Gardiner’s sympathetic reading and replicated in a near-ideal recording that brings out every detail of Bach’s youthful orchestration. Listen to the rapturous Es Ist Der Alte Bund where a solo soprano pleads over the chorus, Ja komm, Herr Jesu, komm, before breaking off heart-stoppingly, mid sentence – just one example of how Gardiner makes Bach strike home again and again. The so-called Easter Oratorio is the other work here and for interpretation and soloists goes to the top of my list – even beating Brüggen’s very fine recent version. Gardiner excels in the celebratory opening overture and chorus (stunning trumpets and drums) but…

What is there to say about Ashkenazy’s Rachmaninov that has not already been said? As pianist and conductor he has been associated with this composer throughout his career, and on disc from his earliest recital. As a young award-winning pianist and well into middle age, Ashkenazy maintained the big technique necessary to play Rachmaninov (whose large hands could easily stretch a 15th at the piano), coupled with a thoughtful temperament that produced searching and highly musical performances with a lack of over-the-top flamboyance. It is this quality that has made Ashkenazy’s recordings ones to live with. This 11 CD set contains all the composer’s music for piano, two pianos, and piano and orchestra. He recorded some works more than once, so we find the Études Tableaux and the Corelli Variations from both 1974 and 1985/86 (for the former) and 2011 (for the latter). There is also a doubling up of the Suite No 1 for Two Pianos: we get the 1974 recording with Previn, and a later version with the pianist’s son Vovka. Yet strangely enough, Ashkenazy’s celebrated accounts of the piano concertos with Previn and the LSO are not included; instead, recordings with Haitink conducting the Concertgebouw take their……

This recording combines brio with an irresistible musical partnership.

Chopin’s compositions are generally considered innovative in form, style and harmony. To a modern-listener however, they can sometimes lack originality and excitement. There’s nothing overly special about his piano concerti: they are pretty, nice, polite. The works are advanced considering Chopin’s 20 years of age, but there’s an evident reliance on the models of Mozart and Hummel. The liner notes are correct in describing a “youthful charm”, but the music doesn’t yearn for individualism and sophistication. Nikolai Lugansky has previously filed recordings of both works, and this new CD only serves to reiterate the pianist’s musicianship. Lugansky and the Sinfonia Varsovia certainly fulfill Chopin’s expressive aesthetic and dramatic intention: at times delicate and then unexpectedly and boldly virtuosic. While the focus is clearly upon the solo piano, it’s equally enjoyable to hear other instruments so clearly. The horns are triumphant in the background, the oboe calls across the strings, and the flute sings from the highest musical summit. Rather than approaching technical passages with the rigidity of an étude, Lugansky gives them the ebb and flow of a musical poem. The orchestra is also sympathetic to the mediation between Classical and Romantic periods – neither brash nor timid. In the…

British composers have had a rough time outside of the Anglosphere. The Europeans disdain them, even though the Germans grudgingly allow Delius and Elgar in the door, and our own musical intelligentsia often seem embarrassed by them. Frederick Austin was a top opera singer in his day, and a composer. His splendid overture, The Sea Venturers yields place to no one. Stanford and Sullivan are credited with setting a solid platform for the resurgence of English music at the turn of the 19th century. Stanford’s Prelude to Oedipus Tyrannus is impressive and well crafted. Sullivan is represented by his Macbeth Overture, a solid piece of work with strong themes. With Coleridge-Taylor’s overture to The Song of Hiawatha, I expected music more in keeping with the colourful Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast. The overture is a mildly attractive piece, though not reflecting the colourful music of the oratorio. Many of these charming pieces were written for the theatre, like MacKenzie’s Overture to The Little Minister, Gardiner’s Overture to a Comedy and Bantok’s The Frogs. All this music is robust and sparkling with inventive orchestration, far from the self-effacing image we often have of this repertoire. The playing and recording throughout are first class….

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…