Anyone who still considers Pierre Boulez to be a threat or a dangerous malcontent – where to put those obligatory mentions of torching opera houses and valueless tonal music? here will do – might be pleasantly surprised at the playlist served up by this box of Boulez’s complete recordings for Columbia Records. Berlioz, Mahler, Debussy, Stravinsky, Ravel, Bartók and Wagner are the dominant narrative. The occasional disc of music by Elliott Carter, Luciano Berio and Boulez himself oblige us to play plink-plonk; but even these apparently unwelcome brushes with the avant-garde get offset by a performance of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and discs of Handel Water and Fireworks Music. And as he prepares to celebrate his 90th birthday in 2015, the most dangerous truth of all is revealed. Boulez was an insider all along, who, unlike his frenemy John Cage, has always viewed progress as an embedded part of, and never an alternative to, tradition. That said, admire Boulez as I do, as a Beethoven conductor, he ain’t no great shakes. A plodding, micro-managed Fifth Symphony plays the notes but utterly misses the music. His Handel, though, is rhythmically assertive and detailed. Makes you wish Boulez had recorded some Bach. The…

I’ve long considered William Walton’s First Symphony as equal to Elgar’s two masterworks, although seriously underrated as one of the pillars of 20th-century symphonic repertoire. It also marked one of the great “breakthroughs’  in 20th-century music, when Walton served notice he had broken free of the louche, epicene aristocrats of his early creative life – from Bright Young Thing to Angry Young Man. I recently heard Walton’s music described as “tame”. I suggest the writer consult an audiologist. The First Symphony’s greatest recording is almost universally judged to be André Previn’s 1966 LSO, all the more amazing since Previn’s exposure to British music had been minimal. The composer’s own recording of the work with the old Philharmonia in its palmiest days was also excellent (giving the lie to the notion that most composers, except Bernstein, made lousy interpreters of their own scores). Previn’s reading captured the rubber-on-tarmac, pedal-to-the-metal velocity, brilliantly maintained tautness and rugged glamour, not to mention one of the best “travelling tunes” ever composed. Edward Gardner doesn’t surpass Previn in any of these but gives a performance that is, nonetheless, impressive and highly enjoyable. The timpani strokes in the first movement are also impressive in their precision. The…

Let me say at the very outset that musically Belisario is one of Donizetti’s very finest works. Dating from 1836, it came hot on the heels of Maria Stuarda and Lucia di Lammermoor and it finds the composer at the height of his lyrical powers. It had a bumpy ride to opening night (see the excellent booklet) but despite cast problems and a libretto that had been turned down by a previous management Donizetti enjoyed something of a triumph. The young librettist, Salvadore Cammerano, was to become one of the century’s greatest, but here he fails to make everything add up to a satisfying dramatic whole. Belisario’s embittered wife, who in the first act looks set to be the prima donna, fails to put in an appearance in Act Two, while the tenor who turns out to be her long-lost child is an old saw long past its sell-by. The composer too made the odd slip – the perky second tune of the overture for example is at odds with the tragic nature of Belisario’s fall from grace, blinding and eventual demise. BUT, that aside, there are some superb scenes to be relished, especially in a performance as compelling as the one delivered here by the……

How good it is to have such excellent accounts of two major works for voice and orchestra by Holst. The first, dating from 1904 (and revised eight years later) is The Mystic Trumpeter, a setting of Walt Whitman featuring a soprano solo, and the second is the First Choral Symphony, a four-movement work with texts by Keats for soprano, chorus and orchestra. This recording might have come to light some years ago were it not for the untimely death of Richard Hickox in 2008, who passed away just as the project was beginning. Andrew Davis has more than ably assumed Hickox’s mantle and with Susan Gritton (who had begun work with the late conductor) he invests these works with all the colour and drama they demand. In The Mystic Trumpeter the overtly musical references of Whitman’s text help give shape and coherence to Holst’s musical language, allowing the composer to distance himself further from the Wagnerian idioms of which he was overly fond and edge closer to a unique personal style. The varied and often delicate nature of the orchestration allows a clear and effective presentation of Whitman’s paean to love, freedom and joy. Lasting just under 20 minutes, the…

  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…