It looked an enervating prospect: an entire disc devoted to Bach family members who in several cases are too obscure for any musical encyclopaedia smaller than Grove. The result – consistently well played on an organ in Melk Abbey, Austria – quickly banishes boredom to prove an improbable artistic success, aided by a beautifully austere cover design. Heinrich Bach died in 1692, but the chorale prelude with which this CD begins sounds so pleasantly old-fashioned as to imply a 16th rather than 17th-century composer. By contrast, the Prelude and Fugue in E Flat by Heinrich’s son, the underrated Johann Christoph Bach (1642-1703), second cousin of Johann Sebastian), could easily be mistaken for Buxtehude. The Fugue in C Minor by a much better known figure, WF Bach, likewise possesses real distinction, tending to justify the hopes which JSB placed in his eldest son, and inspiring in at least one listener a desire to track down the rest of WF’s organ output. Uniquely among the compositions on this release, the remarkably effective fugue by Johann Christian Bach – not the eponymous ‘English Bach’, but a younger man whose dates were 1745-1814 – is based on the B-A-C-H theme afterwards so profitable to… Continue…

When they burst onto the chamber music scene in the 1970s, the Emerson String Quartet were iconoclasts. New York-based, they swapped first and second violin roles, and along with the Brodskys and Kronos they swept away the grand but stuffy tradition embodied by the Amadeus and the Guarneris. And now, nine Grammys later, they’re continuing to push the boundaries with an intriguing CD featuring the bookends of arguably the most momentous decade ever in classical music. Joined by long-time collaborators, American violist Paul Neubauer and British cellist Colin Carr, the Emerson’s readings of the great sextets by Tchaikovsky and Schoenberg are like a lesson in musical history. Tchaikovsky, at the beginning of the 1890s, used his Souvenir de Florence (the slow movement was written in the city) to continue the classical traditions that he inherited from his models Mozart and Mendelssohn. Then, at the end of that decade – indeed century – the young Schoenberg in his Transfigured Night sent music into the future, his twisted harmonies depicting haunted forests and psycho-babbling sensualists. And in this wonderfully-played CD, which is being hailed as a farewell for cellist David Finckel who’s leaving after 34 years, the Emersons and friends do everything…

A glorious slideshow of works rolls out with a superb sense of freshness under Lisiecki’s fingers.

Il Trittico can be seen as Puccini’s operatic response to the challenge of cinema: three pacey shorts with flavoursome, impressionistic music designed to project a sense of time, place and action but with less of a focus on the traditional aria.  Richard Jones’ smart looking production from Covent Garden is its first Royal Opera staging in fifty years but with an excellent ensemble and stylish conducting from Antonio Pappano it clearly deserves to find a place in their permanent repertoire. The first instalment, Il Tabarro, is a miniature verissmo shocker set on a sweltering night in a seedy, Parisian waterside community (just off the red light district it would appear in this staging).  This is the dark side of La Bohème (Puccini even quotes from Mimi’s aria).  A tale of adultery and murder it receives passionate and pointedly non-glamorous performances from Eva-Maria Westbroek and Aleksandrs Antonenko as the doomed lovers.  Lucio Gallo puts in a sympathetic turn as the betrayed husband although vocally he is a bit dull.  The supporting roles are beautifully realised, especially Jeremy White and Irina Mishura as a world-weary docker and his wife. Next comes Puccini’s personal favourite, the gentle tragedy of Suor Angelica, which is…

It’s easy to see why Berlioz’s overtures are among the most consistently popular symphonic pieces with audiences young and old. With vividly orchestrated melodies that linger in the memory, dramatic shifts of mood and high-octane rhythms, they are irresistible. This collection, featuring the Bergen Philharmonic conducted by Englishman Sir Andrew Davis, is like listening to a roll call of old favourites. It starts with a bang – the whirlwind intro to Le Corsaire – and finishes with the great rolling finale to Benvenuto Cellini. On the way it takes in two stalwarts in Les Francs-Juges and Le Carnaval Romaine, the Shakespearean sweep of Le Roi Lear, the Scottish political romance of Waverly and the comic interplay of Beatrice and Benedict. Davis controls all of this with a master’s touch and the orchestra responds in kind. The SACD recording compares favourably with older standbys like Colin Davis’s Staatskapelle Dresden performances and Adrian Boult’s 1950s versions with the LPO. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Andrew Ford’s eclectic tastes and playful persona, well known from his bitingly witty and perceptive critical essays and radio shows are well represented here in this collection of finely crafted compositions from 2001-2007. The main work, Learning to Howl for soprano, soprano saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, harp and percussion, sets verses of Sappho and other mostly women poets across the centuries in an approachable lyrical style – the vocal writing refreshingly natural and idiomatic. The work has an austere, delicate beauty with its sparse accompaniment of harp and percussion and Ford’s keen ear for sonority and colour is much in evidence. Jane Sheldon’s pure tone and accurate intonation interweaves well with the wind obbligatos played by Margery Smith, but the songs would benefit from more dramatic projection and variety of tone on the vocalist’s part. The other lengthy work here Elegy in a Country Graveyard overlays recorded interviews of elderly residents with choir and ensemble to create an evocatively atmospheric depiction of a spectacularly positioned graveyard at Robertson in NSW’s Southern Highlands – a nostalgic tribute if quaintly ‘ABC Radio’ in character with its cawing crows. Three short works complete the disc of which the standout is Snatches of Old…

    Former child prodigy Jennifer Pike, who stunned the music world by winning the BBC Musician of the Year competition at the age of 12 performing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, has matured into one of the major talents of her generation. At just 23, and after studies at Oxford University, the English virtuoso impresses again with the latest in her growing discography. Accompanied by Scottish pianist Tom Poster, Pike’s 1708 Goffriller instrument sings sweetly on this beautiful and intimate program. From the hauntingly lovely opening bars of the Brahms Sonata the listener knows they are in for special treat. Pike’s phrasing throughout is full and mature – never hurried, never over the top – but with beautiful lines and pitch-perfect intonation. She and Poster enjoy a warm symbiosis which is entirely apt for the works of three composers who were locked together by fate. The interplay between the two in the Allegretto of Robert’s Sonata is a feature. Pike lingers just long enough on the sustained notes that lead into the playful passages. The disc is neatly rounded off by Three Romances by Clara. Much has been made of her abilities as a pianist and teacher – admired by Chopin, Liszt and…

  Yundi (born in 1982), like Lang Lang, is a major musical sensation in China, where he is treated like a rock star by a generation of young devotees. China is a vast and expanding market in this area, as in many others, and if it takes celebrity promotion to get more people to fall in love with classical music, then I’m all for it! My problem concerns the narrowness of the repertoire, implying that a few recognised masterpieces exist and nothing else is worth bothering about. The farthest these young keyboard lions stray from the beaten track (apart from insipid transcriptions of traditional Chinese songs) are Mendelssohn’s First Piano Concerto (Lang) and Prokofiev’s Second (Yundi). Yundi approaches Beethoven in the same manner as the showmen concert pianists of old. His elongated opening phrases of the Pathétique indicate that these will be Romantic interpretations with no Classical or period flavour. He thunders the third movement of the Moonlight Sonata as if it were Chopin’s Revolutionary Étude. This places him at a considerable stylistic distance from young European pianists who have recorded Beethoven of late, like Ingrid Fliter, Alice Sara Ott or François Frédéric Guy, all of whom display an awareness of…

  Often mistakenly called a folk opera, The Bartered Bride certainly evokes a world of dirndls, wide eyed peasants and hands-on-hips dancing. But don’t be fooled, there is no folk music in this opera, even if it might sound it. In fact a Frankfurt Opera production set in the 1930s with the men in three-piece suits, worked more effectively for me than Opera Australia’s trad production from a few months earlier. Written in 1866, the work was not a success. It took quite some time for it to become the greatly loved opera that it now is. The score abounds in marvellous tunes and infectious ensembles, the composer ensuring a balance between numbers that continually refresh the ear. The infectious rhythm for Kecal’s Act 1 aria, the graceful melody for Marenka and Vašek’s duet, and the merry tunes for the dances and choruses, make for a genial and enjoyable score. Dvorák and others at the time regarded the opera as the seminal work of Czech light opera. Dana Burešová makes a fine, clear voiced Marˇenka but Tomáš Juhás as Jenik is a little too shrill. The buffo comic Kecal, is sung by a superannuated Jozef Benci with far too much…

  Joachim Raff (1822-1882) was a celebrated composer in his time, equally as famous as his older contemporaries Schumann and Liszt (he was the latter’s assistant in Weimar in the 1850s.) Raff wrote prolifically, composing eleven symphonies, yet his work fell out of favour and is rarely played today. This excellent release from Järvi and his Swiss orchestra – appropriately, since Raff’s family was Swiss – gives us a possible clue as to why his popularity did not outlast the century. The Second Symphony surges forward in the manner of Schumann’s Rhenish, especially in Järvi’s vigorous performance. The lusty first movement is built on a fanfare figure, and the work is bracingly orchestrated with clarity and flair. Compared to his peers, however, Raff lacks a distinctive personality; his music is a public utterance, at odds with the Romantic zeitgeist. His harmony is less sophisticated than Schumann’s, and certain themes sound derivative of Mendelssohn, who had been dead 20 years. Raff embraced programmatic music, and this side of the composer can be heard in his four Shakespearean Preludes. They pre-echo the tone poems of Richard Strauss, but again Strauss did it with more imagination and individuality. If you don’t expect more,…

  For many, English song means the late flowering that was Warlock, Gurney, Quilter, Butterworth and Vaughan Williams. But where were they coming from, and were they reacting against a tradition or developing out of one? The latter, I would suggest, if you listen to Parry’s contribution to the genre, and this generous selection of his finest proves as good a place as any to begin. Our guide is the admirable Iain Burnside, an accompanist and programmer on a mission it would seem, and one who has done more for the byways of British song over the last decade than pretty much anyone else. This beautifully programmed recital reveals Parry combining an innately English sensibility with the fastidious craft of the great German lieder composers. Sincerity and proper declamation of text are clearly paramount, and if the melodic invention doesn’t always rise to quite the same level, this is still an enjoyable and important survey. Highlights include better- known numbers like the arch- romantic To Lucasta on Going to the Wars, the winsome Julia (echoes of Gurney or Warlock) and the chipper My Heart is Like a Singing Bird. For genuine depths of inspiration though, turn to the haunting Nightfall in…

Czech composer Jan Zelenka (1679-1745) was held in high regard by masters such as JS Bach and Telemann. Today his majestic church music is finally receiving the attention it deserves. But his six sonatas ZWV181 have been popular with modern wind players since the mid-1950s. Unsurprising, given the virtuosic treatment. These sonatas are superb examples of the quadro sonata, a genre in which all four voices were given fully independent parts. In Janice B Stockigt’s excellent booklet to this equally excellent recording, she quotes one of Zelenka’s students, JJ Quantz referring to the quadro sonata as “the true touchstone of a genuine contrapuntist”. Ensemble Marsyas, named after the satyr of Greek mythology who challenged Apollo in a reed-playing competition (he was skinned alive for his trouble), here perform sonatas III, V and VI; they are joined in Sonata III by that doyenne of the Baroque violin, Monica Huggett. Performances are dazzling throughout, with Josep Domenech Lafont and Molly Marsh (oboes) and Peter Whelan (bassoon) negotiating Zelenka’s dazzling, inventive and sometimes dense but never unclear writing with style and élan. Violone player Christine Sticher likewise relishes her part while keyboardist Philippe Grisvard and theorbo player Thomas Dunford add harmonic richness to…