Given that Haydn left few instructions concerning the interpretation of his sonatas, Bavouzet notes that the performer “must, even more than usual, create his own world, his own logic, left only to hope that … he will not distance himself too far from the composer’s intentions”. Bavouzet relishes this challenge of bringing Haydn’s sonatas to life. In the latest instalment of his cycle he takes two early and four later sonatas and works his own musical magic with them. Of particular concern are the issues of ornamentation and repeats. Repeats are ornamented with imagination and elegance and in certain cases codas are ‘saved’ for the final repeat. These performances are admirable in their attention to detail and are delivered with a technical fluency that is always at the service of the music. The insightful annotations reveal Bavouzet’s fascination with these delightful works and his sense of artistic freedom. In the A major sonata (Hob XVI: 12) he was intrigued by the chromatic, minor mode Trio of the Menuet. As a thoughtful epilogue, he plays it at a much slower speed than would be possible ‘in situ’. Bavouzet’s use of a Yamaha piano with its clear, bright treble is one point……

The world continues to shrink! First we have Philippe Herreweghe and his Champs-Elysées forces in Bruckner’s mighty Fifth Symphony with an orchestra of just 68. Then Thomas Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra in a convincing reading of another Bruckner symphony, this time the Second. Robyn Ticciati’s outstanding Symphonie Fantastique a couple of years ago belled the cat about how Berlioz can sound with smaller forces: this emotional roller coaster, where passion so often becomes an extreme sport lacked nothing in drama and, well, passion in their account. This current super-audio disc represents Ticciati’s latest foray into Berlioz. I listened to this release with a Berlioz expert and asked him not to reveal his reaction until after I’d written this revue. When he read it, he concurred completely. We both loved both the performances and the interpretation. The early La Morte de Cleopâtre sees the up-and-coming mezzo-soprano Karin Cargill in quite superb voice. Their can be no greater praise heaped on her than to say that, not since Dame Janet Baker’s recording more than 40 years ago has the worked been so successfully and graphically sung. It has just the right degree of histrionic agony as well as plenty of…

Dynamic New York outfit Brooklyn Rider have quite a knack of marrying interesting takes on the mainstream canon with new commissions and their own original material.

If a label like ECM chooses to back a young composer it’s safe to assume she’s beyond just showing promise. And if Janine Jansen and Maxim Rysanov come to the party with works composed especially for them, their endorsement affirms a major new talent. Meet Dobrinka Tabakova, born in Bulgaria in 1980 but based in London since her early teens. At once forward-looking and steeped in old-school romanticism, the music is sensually attuned to timbre and sweeping melody, with just enough Eastern European bite and folk-derived earthiness lurking beneath the polished surface (listen to the lilting, modal solo in Suite in Old Style’s third movement). Tabakova has a gift for string writing that connects the English lyricism of Vaughan Williams and Elgar to the glassier, sombre textures of Arvo Pärt – the music is always brimming with personality, even if it’s not always immediately apparent that it’s her own. Jansen, the dedicatee of Such Different Paths, steps out of her spotlight to indulge her chamber proclivities, bringing sweetly focused lightness to the driving rhythms. In the dark- hued Concerto for Cello and Strings, the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra play at the level of their solist, Latvian Kristina Blaumane (principal cellist of……

This utterly imposing performance of Berlioz’s grandest work was one of the last great triumphs of Sir Colin Davis’s long and illustrious career.

It is rather frightening to contemplate the sheer swiftness with which Widor found his mature style. Every phrase on this CD dates from Widor’s twenties, and though he wrote much equally good music later on, he seldom if ever surpassed his achievements here. Alas, outside France almost no organists now play these two works in concert, unless they have prepared a cycle of all ten Widor symphonies. Readers still unfamiliar with the composer’s idiom will find delightful surprises aplenty. To pluck out instances at random: in No 1, the richly Franckian Adagio, the once celebrated Marche Pontificale with its Elgarian tinge, and the Meditation which in the reticent pathos would not have disgraced a Fauré Barcarolle; in No 2, the prelude’s proto- Reger chromaticism, the Salve Regina movement’s effortless mystic rapture, and the Toccata’s harmonic detours (a thousand pities that this Toccata has been so comprehensively overshadowed by its hackneyed, inferior counterpart from No 5). Perth-based Joseph Nolan favours a moderate approach. At times he might be thought a little too cautious, and he is not always as exuberant as Widor’s admittedly puzzling metronome marks would imply. For example, Widor gave a crotchet = 100 indication for No 1’s Allegretto;…

If you’ve taken a look at its hideous cover art, and somehow managed to avoid having its offensively kitschy image burned permanently onto your retinas, and similarly survived a read-through of the tedious booklet without lapsing into a word-induced coma, you might finally get around to listening to the music contained in Nicholas Vines’ album, Torrid Nature Scenes. And you might even discover that, despite the visual signs to the contrary, this young Australian composer’s music is surprisingly good – damn good, in fact. The collection comprises three of his recent chamber pieces, The Butcher of Brisbane, The Economy of Wax and Torrid Nature Scene, performed by the splendidly named American new music ensemble Callithumpian Consort and soloists. All three works are rich in atmospheric soundscapes, gestural impact, complex rhythmic overlaying, and fresh thematic ideas. Particularly impressive is the album’s title work, Torrid Nature Scene, for solo soprano, mezzo-soprano and chamber group. Described in typically vivid language in the booklet as “a squelchy, romping obscenity” (sigh), the seven-movement work plays as an inverted pastorale. Bawdy neo-Shakespearian poetry by Andrew Robbie is set to music that captivates from beginning to end, bathing us in ever-evolving textures, and steering us through a……

Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No 2 in G is played much less often than its popular predecessor.

This CD hails from a 1983 live Royal Festival Hall concert at a time when this symphony was much less known than it is now. In the intervening years, many of the usual suspects have recorded it, often as part of an integral cycle. This recording, however, wears its age particularly well! Rozhdestvenksy had been at the apex of Shostakovich interpreters for years, even in 1983, and his experience shows in the flowing tempo and rhythmic variation in the huge adagio arc of the first movement (almost the length of the other movements combined) without losing either drama or intensity. The string playing is first rate. A relentless unremitting trudge often casts a shadow from which the remainder of the work never recovers. Even by the standards of Shostakovich’s highly original approach to symphonic structure, the Eighth is certainly problematic. Rozhdestvensky’s account of the two bizarrely juxtaposed scherzi brings out the usual ‘bi-polar’ elements of Shostakovich’s scores in this vein: manic almost febrile gaiety alternating with militaristic aggression and grotesque hecticness. The trumpet episode in the second demonstrates the fine quality of the soloists in the London Philharmonic at that time. The final two movements pose more interpretive challenges: perhaps…

  Couperin’s three surviving Leçons de Ténèbres (settings of texts from the Lamentations of Jeremiah to be sung at the office of Tenebrae in Holy Week) are surely some of the greatest glories of the French Baroque and a validation of the musical taste of Louis XIV. The first two lessons are scored for just one voice, and then to heighten the dramatic and spiritual intensity of the music, the third lesson is scored for two voices. English soprano Carolyn Sampson and Norwegian mezzo Marianne Beate Kielland deploy their different voices to great effect in the first two lessons, and when they come together we hear how complementary their instruments are, giving the music an admirable amount of light and shade, particularly in the urgent final refrain, “Jerusalem, return to the Lord, your God”. Robert King and his consort afford nuanced support for the singers, opting for traditional organ continuo. For an alternative view with harpsichord continuo, the account with William Christie, Les Arts Florissants and sopranos Sophie Daneman and Patricia Petibon remains a classic. Apart from strong performances in the main work, the added appeal of this newcomer lies in the generous selection of makeweights. These include Couperin’s famous motet…

The second half of the Belcea Quartet’s Beethoven cycle, again mixing-and-matching quartets from all three periods, is a culmination of the modern era’s tendency to turn Beethoven from the voice of God into a highly-strung mortal, whose music is as skittish as a like-whatever teenager texting. Forget the played-in- blood, unified drama of the Jurassic-Era American recordings by the Yale and Guarneri Quartets, or the modern European classic from the Takács. The London-based Belceas, now nearing their 20th anniversary, are all about character-playing, revealing a big-personality Beethoven whose moods and emotions discharge on a hair-trigger. These live performances from the Snape Maltings Hall in Aldeburgh are excellently-recorded and equally well-played, and it’s up to the listener to try to keep up with the caffeinated hyper-activity as each new musical impulse is animated with the energy of a game-show host. Some of it’s deeply felt, like the slow movement of the first Razoumovsky Quartet, for instance, but it never dwells there, as if settlement on a definitive point-of-view is impossible when there are still so many musical hyperlinks to click on. The DNA of any complete Beethoven string quartet cycle, though, is contained in the epic slow movement of Op 132….

The reclusive Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813-1888) wrote almost exclusively for the piano. His fascinating music, which is finally becoming known and admired by a wider audience, is among the most individual and technically demanding of any in the Romantic era. His challenging Twelve Studies Op 35 and the titanic Symphony for Solo Piano (from Op 39) have previously been given outstanding recordings by the Australian pianist Stephanie McCallum. The series entitled Recueils de Chants (literally: Compilations of Songs) are rather different. In five books of six pieces each, composed between 1857 and 1872, these are pieces on a smaller scale, modeled to some extent on Mendelssohn’s Songs without words but displaying a broader expressive range. Some have evocative titles such as Chant de guerre and Esprit follets, while others are simply given tempo indications. Each book ends with a Barcarolle, where the quirky essence of the composer’s individuality is most evident. While these Chants do not require the sheer stamina of Alkan’s larger works, they do require a skillful and sympathetic pianist who can tease out the lyricism and bring point to the composer’s distinctive style. McCallum is across every aspect of this music, exploring the collection’s diversity with apparent ease –…