Some Elgar to treasure from Britain’s queen of the Strad.

The Australian-born Chief Executive & Artistic Director of the London Philharmonic Orchestra has been recognised in the UK New Year’s Honours List.

Sir Mark Elder’s first-thoughts Puccini may well give you the willis.

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Messiaen’s masterwork goes for the lot: rocks, birds and throws in the song of the star Aldebaran for good measure. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The critics have spoken and the results are in. Here are Limelight's five top recordings of 2015.

Fresh recordings of Olivier Messiaen’s Des Canyons aux Étoiles… come along only rarely. Scored for four soloists – piano, French horn, glockenspiel and xylorimba – really every player in Messiaen’s orchestra needs to be a virtuosic soloist too. He gently warns anyone fancying their chances that his woodwind writing is exceptionally tough, while few composers throw out as many hardcore challenges to orchestral percussionists as Messiaen. But given that Des Canyons aux Étoiles… (From the canyons to the stars…) is a philosophical and spiritual portrait in sound of the Bryce Canyon in Utah, with its shape-shifting rock structures and vistas of sheer science-fiction awe, it would have been odd had Messiaen not attempted to accentuate the primacy of sound over music by recalibrating the expected relationships between harmony, melody and rhythm. Because Messiaen’s hills are not so much alive with the sound of music – these canyons are brought alive with the sound of sound, this extraordinary score inviting your ears to footslog through a living, breathing, evolving aural environment. The first sound you hear is a faraway French horn call, here the excellent John Ryan, which opens the aperture like a wide-angled lens. Then Messiaen zooms in close: woodwind……

This live performance was given in the Royal Festival Hall, London, in February 2011. The London Philharmonic has a proud Mahler tradition – they were Tennstedt’s orchestra in the 1980s – and they have released some excellent Mahler performances recently on their house label (notably Jurowski’s readings of Symphonies 1 and 2). This is another. Nézet-Séguin’s pacing of this work (with one arguable exception) is pretty much perfect. How neatly he places the explosive transition into the veritable circus march at the point in Von der Schönheit where the poem depicts a galloping steed plunging through the countryside. The all-important closing section of Der Abschied is well done too: not drawn out interminably but allowed to wind down to its last fading sixth chord in a truly affecting manner. The orchestra plays with great precision and expression throughout. The soloists are also very good. Toby Spence (to my surprise) reveals himself to have the burnished heldentenor voice required for his first and third songs, with a ringing top but also plenty of strength in the middle register. He knows what he is singing about, finding the undercurrent of desperation (just as Sarah Connolly beautifully expresses the melancholy at the heart……

Deportation to Australia would be an infringement of his human rights, says judge.

The erotic novel everyone is talking about has spawned a classical music compilation. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Burglar in just a towel impersonated Bell to gain access to the violinist’s safe. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in