Mikhail Pletnev once recorded a sensational piano transcription of the Nutcracker suite. His traversal of the entire ballet isn’t quite in that class. Tchaikovsky’s score has more glamour, charm and sheer magic than almost any other music, ballet or otherwise. I suppose its nearest rival would be his own Sleeping Beauty. I’ve never really heard a bad Nutcracker but I doubt this reading surpasses the two wonderful Doratis or my own favourite: André Previn with the LSO (EMI). It’s unfortunate Ondine couldn’t have filled the first CD and found something else to fill the second, as both have less than 50 minutes of playing time.  Sometimes the orchestra sounds rather flatly recorded, especially the brass. The traditional highlights, such as the Waltz of the Flowers and the dancing snowflakes, remain somewhat earthbound. The pistol shot at the start of the mouse battle sounds like a popgun and the castanets in the Spanish dance are poorly captured: they’re barely there. I always judge the performance by the Arabian dance – if the sinuous sensuality is there, the rest will usually take care of itself. Well, it’s not… Look, there’s nothing catastrophically wrong with this version, but… Continue reading Get unlimited digital…

It seems hard to countenance today but in 1941 it was possible for a man to pass into legend who was not only a composer and the highest-paid musician of his day but also the Prime Minister of his country. The country in question was Poland; the man: Ignacy Jan Paderewski. As a tribute to his charismatic genius, boosey and Hawkes commissioned an anthology from 17 of the leading contemporary composers, which forms the starting point for this fascinating CD. The line-up of the great and the good forms a curious state-of-the-nation snapshot of music in the midst of WWII, for all of the composers were resident in North America at the time – some unable to return to their homelands. Represented here with distinction we find Bartók (cheating with the rehashed Three Hungarian Folk-Tunes), Milhaud, Castelnuovo-Tedesco (a charming mazurka), Goossens (a clever Homage based on Chopin’s C-minor Prelude), Martinu (another tangy mazurka) and even Britten, although the latter misunderstood the commission and composed a melancholy piece for two pianos. It’s good to see Australian-born Arthur Benjamin contributing an impressive, wistful Elegiac Mazurka. My personal favourite among many unknown gems was Stojowski’s delicate Cradle Song. The excellent british… Continue reading…

The six Bach Cello Suites are the cornerstone of the cello repertory. They make for ultimate judgement, able to intimidate and awe player and listener alike. Pablo Casals discovered them for the modern world and made them his own. Now Michael Goldschlager has put his own stamp on them. There’s no sign of intimidation here. From the first moment, Goldschlager gives us a committed and profoundly thoughtful interpretation of the Suites. The warm acoustic, though fine, does not quite match the deep glow of my favourite recording by Heinrich Schiff, but this is a different reading, with Goldschlager seeming to imbue the music with deep, intense personal emotion. In his thoughtful notes to this 2-CD set, Goldschlager explains that he finds the Suites almost skeletal in outline, believing that if Bach had revisited them they might have been fleshed out with far more embellishment. But it is this very austerity in which he seems to rejoice in performance, an austerity which is, at the same time, the essence of beauty. This is a wonderful reading which can find a place alongside the best and most famous in the catalogue. The performance is notable for its… Continue reading Get unlimited digital…

This is no daddy-daughter vanity project; 24-year-old Lily Maisky is an impressive pianist in her own right with a felicitous musical rapport with her famous cellist father. He might count Martha Argerich as a long-standing duo partner, but in this selection of popular Spanish songs and dances – recorded live in concert – it’s hard to imagine a more fresh or sympathetic union. Lily’s buoyant accompaniment perfectly matches Mischa’s bright, crisp pizzicatos in the third movement of Falla’s Suite populaire espagnole; both bring searing intensity to the sixth’s rapidly repeated notes. A gift for expressive cantabile must be in the Maisky blood, as heard in the phrasing of Granados’s Intermezzo and in his lilting Andaluza from the 12 Danzas españolas (the cellist’s own arrangement). There is plenty of mystery in their fragrantly ornamented reading of Ravel’s Habanera, and it’s lovely to hear the full range of Mischa’s cello, especially the rich, resplendent nether end, in the stately Playera by Sarasate. What I long for on this album though, after all that Mediterranean lyricism, is a lively, virtuosic contrast. Falla’s Danse espagnole No 1 from La Vida Breve is a good effort but the cellist’s uncharacteristically… Continue reading Get unlimited digital…

Interesting historical fact: In 1825, Johann Schultz and the Gewandhaus Orchestra presented the very first complete cycle of the Beethoven symphonies, a tradition followed by Schultz’s Leipzig successors which have included luminaries such as Mendelssohn, Furtwängler and Masur. Thus, with this new cycle under maestro Riccardo Chailly on Decca, it is fair to say that these works are pretty much “in the blood”. In fact, to sum up this beautifully presented 5-CD set, it is a rather brilliant fusion of the old and the new. The traditional element is immediately evident in the sound. The Leipzig strings offer a rich, beefy timbre while the brass is bright and punchy, though never vulgar. All of this is captured in a state-of-the-art recording of tremendous depth. The new is represented in the playing style – strings eschewing unnecessary vibrato, delicate woodwind – but especially in the tempi. Chailly observes Beethoven’s markings to the letter so we have some very fast movements indeed. The beauty is that the orchestra is so fleet of foot that detail is seldom sacrificed in the interests of speed. These unmannered readings allow Beethoven to speak for himself in exceptional versions of the Second, Third, Eighth… Continue reading…

As a teenager, I once bought a recording of Shostakovich’s Twelfth. I played it once and, mystified, put it back on the shelf and hadn’t heard it again until this CD turned up! I’m still mystified but, as I always opine with Shostakovich symphonic cycles, you have to take the good with the bad – and the Twelfth is pretty bad. Not even Petrenko, who is developing into one of our best Shostakovich conductors, can do much with this turkey, but he does manage to invest the Adagio with a generalised eeriness. The Sixth is another matter: unduly neglected, it’s arguably Shostakovich’s most inscrutable and abstract symphony, whose lopsided construction does interpreters no favours, since the second and third movements combined are barely half the length of the preceding Largo and, as a skittish Scherzo and jokey presto respectively, are uncomfortably similar. Petrenko manages to distinguish them effectively and also achieves a haunting effect in the hugely spanned opening movement. It also sounds genuinely Russian: the “moodiness” of the strings with their undercurrent of sinister power and the piquant woodwind in the latter movements (something Haitink never managed in his recording with the LPO). The four stars… Continue reading Get unlimited digital…

This exceedingly rare anthology presents ballet music from four seldom-performed operas by the French late-Romantic composer Camille Saint-Saëns. This disc may be the only way most people will ever experience these delightful works. We know the operatic Saint-Saëns for the most part only through Samson and Delilah and its famous aria Softly Awakes My Heart. His other operas have languished, but here we have excerpts from his Henry VIII, Ascanio, Étienne Marcel and Les Barbares – all mostly consigned to the music history books.  Orchestra Victoria under Guillaume Tourniaire makes a persuasive case for ending this neglect. If the rest of the operas are as graceful and beautiful as the ballet music suggests, then their resurrection is well overdue. The music is elegant, and surprisingly modern touches are couched in musical language wittily evoking a more Classical era. Tourniaire weaves an orchestral tapestry of the most delicate beauty and fluidity. The orchestral sound is never excessive – this refined music is always on its best behaviour. Orchestra Victoria’s playing has a silky sheen and is layered as if translucent. Their level of professionalism makes it extraordinary that our federal and state governments and even The Australia Council are not willing… Continue reading Get unlimited digital…

Anyone who saw Swedish clarinettist Martin Fröst twist, twirl, strut and shimmy his way through his national tour with the ACO last year will know what a physically engaging showman he is. So it’s natural that he would record a dance-themed album during the tour, and no surprise it’s the most eclectic and inspired program the ACO has committed to disc. Hillborg’s Peacock Tales creates a spellbinding atmosphere even without its visual component, Fröst running the expressive and technical gauntlet against an eerie backdrop of clustered strings. Copland’s Clarinet Concerto is equally virtuosic. Both soloist and orchestra (with added piano and harp) are bright and punchy right up to the final clarinet glissando. Fröst is spirited and idiomatic in klezmer tunes scored by his brother Göran and attacked with gusto by the ACO. Göran’s arrangements of Brahms’s Hungarian Dances are well served by the soloist’s lightness of touch and flawless intonation, but it’s the band’s sweeping romanticism that carries these pieces. The most fun on the disc, however, is Högberg’s highly charged Dancing with Silent Purpose with its manic electronic beat. The Expressive Rage movement gives the ACO an opportunity to rock out… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from…

It’s a brave man who steps into the shoes recently vacated by “Big Lucy” and certainly no one could accuse Vittorio Grigolo of timidity. For his second Sony album, the former Sistine Chapel choirboy with the matinee idol looks has nailed his colours firmly to the mast with a selection of popular arias and Italian song. In his sleeve note Grigolo cites Gigli’s influence but also, tellingly, popular tenor Claudio Villa. So how does it stack up? First off, the opera: Grigolo certainly has all the notes. He also has a fast, but not intrusive vibrato. My two quibbles concern a tendency to be below the note at medium volume and another to scoop up to notes in the upper part of his voice. Listen to his La Donna E Mobile for an example of what I mean. This is a pity as he is a good vocal actor and he tops it off with a terrific bravura high B. Elsewhere he offers us a most sensitive Lamento Di Federico from Cilea’s L’Arlesiana, proving that with a little control he can manage any vocal waywardness. Where this CD really takes off, though, is with the “popular”… Continue reading Get unlimited…

It’s hard to know at whom this release is aimed. Wagner’s idiom changed perhaps more radically than that of any other famous composer. Listen to the overtures to Das Liebesverbot (The Ban on Love) and The Fairies and you’d think you were listening to Offenbach or even Gilbert and Sullivan, not the man who went on to compose Tristan and Isolde, The Ring and Parsifal. This strangely assembled program contains an orchestral tribute to The Mastersingers by one Henk de Vlieger, about whom no information whatever is vouchsafed, other than that he was born in 1953. This attempt at a symphonic synthesis is surely based on The Ring: An Orchestral Journey brilliantly recorded by Lorin Maazel and somewhat less excitingly by Edo de Waart. The difference is that, while the Ring Cycle is studded with orchestral interludes and even accompanied vocal passages which have become showpieces in their own right, The Mastersingers has very few. Which brings me back to my original point: who really wants to hear a sort of operatic soundtrack which is hardly self-sufficient? Järvi and the Royal Scottish orchestra are in fine form and the Chandos acoustic is deep and rich, but I… Continue reading Get…

Alice Sara Ott has won several piano competitions and has landed a recording contract with DG. That company has always been generous with up-and-coming pianists, and on the basis of this disc alone Ott should be one of the stayers. Her clarity of articulation and wide dynamic range make her a standout. Ott gives a delightful performance of the C Major Sonata, Op 2 No 3. She is playful and spontaneous in the outer movements, and thoughtful in the Adagio, where she is adept at pointing the passages that hint at the Beethoven to come. The big C Major Sonata Op 53, Waldstein, operates on a larger canvas. At first I thought she was underplaying the drama, but as the work progresses Ott’s individual approach becomes clear. She opts to look inward; her central Adagio molto is a meditation, not the rich outpouring of song we get from Barenboim. Under Ott, the first appearance of the finale’s main theme is as delicate as Debussy’s snowflakes, while the coda dazzles without the try-hard bluster of some other pianists. Altogether it is a refreshing take on a masterpiece, stunningly brought off. She personifies grazioso in the… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access…

The wind quintet offers such a kaleidoscope of colours and characterisation that it’s surprising only a handful of composers have made significant contributions to the genre. Happily, there are superb arrangements to be had, and for their second album the New Sydney Wind Quintet has chosen some real gems. Ravel’s fairytale suite Ma Mère l’Oye (Mother Goose), originally for piano four hands, is the perfect candidate for arrangement. NSWQ’s accomplished orchestral players understand the composer’s rich palette: they are agile and enchanting in the Empress of the Pagodas and bassoonist Andrew Barnes teases out the humour in Beauty and the Beast. Balanced tone in the languid movements comes at the expense of dynamic and dramatic variation, but the quintet throw themselves impressively into the final trills and fanfare. Of the three Percy Grainger miniatures, Lisbon demonstrates how naturally NSWQ’s soloistic passages bend the ear as they emerge from delicately blended textures. Two works by another Australian composer, Lyle Chan, seize the opportunity for mercurial, mischievous wind writing. Passage is fun for players and listeners alike with its jaunty, jazz-inflected syncopation and swing. His rather docile Calcium Light Night, however, yields an uninspired performance. Carl Nielsen’s quintet is the… Continue reading Get unlimited digital…