The Dutch maestro on Hong Kong's acclaimed Ring and its possible return, and new music during his tenure at the New York Phil.

Organist at St Paul’s, composer for the Chapel Royal and ultimately Master of the King’s Music, Maurice Greene’s only fault, it would seem, was that
 he wasn’t Handel. His settings
 of Spenser’s Amoretti (little 
love sonnets) trace the poet’s courtship of his future wife and may be England’s first song cycle. Each of these ditties comprise as many as five contrasting sections. Greene’s setting of Spenser is generally first rate and his response to emotional mood spot-on. The Merry Cuckow, for example, begins with a “trumpet shrill” fanfare that has more than a whiff of The Beggars’ Opera. He then falls into 3⁄4 time as the mood shifts towards love, yet still manages to set the birds name to the traditional “cuck-oo” notes. He can also rise to moments of great beauty, as in One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon The Strand with it’s drooping scotch snaps. It may not have the emotional through line of a Wintereisse, but the cycle ends effectively with three mournful reflections on absent love. Benjamin Hulett’s light, focused voice and exemplary diction perfectly conveys the subtleties of Spenser’s texts. To vary the continuo, Giangiacomo Pinardi on the orbo joins Australian harpsichordist Luke Green…

Märkl’s Debussy series on the Naxos label, of which this is Volume 7, has enjoyed a consistent run of hits with very few misses.

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…

An outstanding debut for spirited young guitarist, Zane Banks.

Were it not for those vastly entertaining orchestral works which form the composer’s Roman Triptych, we might know little more about him than we do about his less illustrious contemporaries Malipiero, Casella and Pizetti. Colourful explosions of orchestral brilliance such as The Fountains of Rome are what propelled the composer to public notice.  What is most striking about the pieces on this CD is how unlike those famous works they are, in sound and style. In fact, apart from Rossiniana, which is reasonably well known, the other items on this album don’t sound like Respighi at all; nor do they sound particularly Italian. A good percentage of this music has been rescued by conductor Salvatore Di Vittorio, who is credited with completing some of the orchestrations. How much is down to him is difficult to ascertain from the notes. Clearly, he has reinvigorated works such as the Aria and Violin Concerto, completing the latter’s last movement – which the composer had barely begun. It is quite beautiful and well worth our attention, but don’t go expecting The Pines of Rome with violin obbligato. It is far more subdued and ruminative, and none the worse for that. The orchestral playing is…

This fascinating opera has had an uneven reputation from day one. Although Boito is better known as the brilliant librettist to Verdi’s last two masterpieces, Falstaff and Otello, he was also a composer of some standing, and Mefistofele was his magnum opus. It is the Faust legend, but done more flamboyantly and with a different dramatic emphasis than Gounod’s. Boito’s opera is a series of vignettes, with gaps between some scenes that do not always add up to a dramatic whole. In this opera, the character of Margherita is almost a sideshow. The main drama takes place between Mefistofele, Faust and God – as represented by a heavenly host, the chorus. By the final act and epilogue Margherita is long gone, leaving the stage to the three protagonists. It all works up to a wonderfully bombastic and exciting finale. Having seen a fine production of this opera in Vienna, I can attest to the work’s power on stage. Flawed it might be, but it is much more fun than Gounod’s Faust, and more dramatic. This live recording comes from the opera house in Palermo and is an effective enough performance from a good provincial opera house. The cast is uniformly…

Pietari Inkinen maintains the high standards he has achieved with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and their distinguished Sibelius cycle. However, the competition is much stronger here (Karajan, Järvi, etc) and I don’t think I’m able to give quite as unqualified an endorsement to the performance as the previous release (Symphonies 4 and 5). Nonetheless, the results are impressive. At just over 44 minutes, tempi are splendidly central (it’s hard to believe the great Sibelius conductor Kajanus got through it in 39’!) but what impresses me most about the reading is the articulation of the strings and both the alert playing of the woodwinds and the way the engineers have captured it. The work was said to have been partly inspired while Sibelius was visiting Italy and there’s certainly plenty of Mediterranean warmth once the first movement gets going, and in the trio of the quicksilver scherzo. Perhaps it helps to be Finnish but Inkinen seems to judge this music unerringly and maintains the odd arctic chill amid the pastoral charm. He doesn’t over-egg the pudding either in the final brass peroration, which can sound laboured if too drawn out, but maintains a convincing intensity. The Karelia suite was one…

How to stream classical music live and on demand from the world's greatest orchestras and opera companies.

This distinguished performance of a much maligned work, more a symphonic cantata than a real symphony, will no doubt form another step in its rehabilitation, although it’s doubtful that Lobgesang “Hymn of Praise” will ever occupy the same exalted rank as the Scottish or Italian Symphonies. It was composed in 1840 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of printing with moveable type – it’s always intrigued me that the powers that be apparently saw fit to celebrate in religious terms the invention of what, in its time, must have caused as great an explosion of knowledge and information as the Internet and Google have done in ours. With at least one Anglican clergyman among my own ancestors, I’ve no wish to denigrate the Protestant religion, which was in itself a major liberating force in Western Europe, but with Mendelssohn everything often ends up sounding Lutheran. That said, this is an absolute cracker, as a performance, recording and interpretation. Märkl invests the opening movement with admirable vigour, as if determined to sweep away portentousness; the Adagio is also purged of etiolated Victorian piety (just!) The unusual combination of singers (two sopranos and a tenor) is also impressive: Ruth Ziesak and Mojca Erdmann…