Renée Fleming and Audra McDonald add sparkle to Michael Tilson Thomas's easy-going opening.

Working with the “real” George Gershwin got me thinking about the relationship between conductors and soloists.

Protean pianist proves he’s sure got rhythm – and then some.

The English dancer on turning triple threat, eight shows a week and tea with Leslie Caron.

A tasty, pleasant, Sunday afternoon chocolate box of classical, blues and ragtime piano.

Matheson and Neave deliver pathos, irony and eye-twinkling humour in this musical biography of the famed resistance fighter.

Michael Finnissy was born in 1946 in London and has been active as a performer (pianist) and composer since the mid-1970s. He served as President of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) from 1990-96, and is currently Professor of Composition at the University of Southampton. His works are renowned for their demanding technical requirements, and often consist of transformative rearrangements of material by other composers: his Verdi Transcriptions for piano (1986) is one of the better-known examples. Finnissy has also completely reworked two sets of songs by George Gershwin for solo piano – Gershwin Arrangements and More Gershwin – and it is the first of these that is presented here in a new recording by Belgian pianist Dirk Herten. Thirteen famous songs, including How Long Has This Been Going On, Love is Here to Stay, Shall We Dance? and Embraceable You have been examined and dissected under the Finnissy microscope, with extremely rewarding results. Spacious and delicately spikey, these arrangements are quite fascinating –Gershwin’s unmistakable melodies are instantly recognisable but embedded within new modernist frameworks that are at once compositionally sophisticated and completely accessible. Herten’s thoughtful and delicate reading prompted Finnissy himself to comment on its demonstration of a…

The American soprano reflects on the dangers of typecasting and the status of Gershwin’s opera today. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The British maestro explains his passion for MGM and why he believes his home team needs support. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

★★★☆☆ Kenan Henderson delivers a music lesson to an audience looking for a recital. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

★★★★½ Pulitzer Prize winning satire comes up smart and savvy. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

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,…