One of the world's very finest choirs transports us to the gates of heaven.

Think you know Richard Strauss’s songs? Think again. Chances are you know a handful, possibly a few dozen, but did you know there are over 190? Brigitte Fassbaender believes it’s the fault of lazy singers and audiences who happily listen to the same ‘Morgens’ and ‘Zueignungs’ time after time, never exploring other riches – and riches there are, several revealed for the first time in this beautifully curated box. Strauss wrote his first song, a charming Christmas ditty, aged six, and his last, Malven, in 1948 at the ripe old age of 78. In between he poured his heart and soul into a series that includes too many masterpieces to mention and remarkably few duds. These recordings, made in Garmisch, the small town where Strauss owned a villa involved 13 singers and Fassbaender herself as narrator of his two melodramas, one of which is the hour-long Enoch Arden. Not every singer is perfect (recording songs in their original – generally high – keys taxes a few), but all round it’s a first rate set, full of discoveries. Among the standouts are mezzo Anke Vondung who gives oodles of gooseflesh with her use of text, delicious high soprano Anja-Nina Bahrmann, and…

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Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House February 27, 2015 If someone had told me a couple of years ago I’d be sitting though a double bill of Wozzeck and Beethoven Nine in Sydney, I would probably have said they were a few notes short of a tone row. Last nights season opening gala, however, proved that in the David Robertson era, anything can (and frequently does) happen. The Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s charismatic Chief Conductor is a dynamo on the podium, a generous colleague and a terrific communicator, but his superpower is programming. By placing the denouement of Alban Berg’s operatic tale about man’s inhumanity to man next to music’s ultimate affirmation of mankind’s ability to transcend its baser instincts, Robertson took us on a musical long night’s journey into day – in the key of D Minor. The concert opened with Bruckner’s motet Christus Factus Est, along with his Locus Iste one of the most beautiful and impassioned of all 19th-century acappella choral works, and here given a clean, clear reading by the excellent Sydney Philharmonia Choirs augmented by the voices of the Sydney Grammar School Choir. No wallowing here, they… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month…

Music and art collide in a winning plot with more coincidences than the Da Vinci Code.

The late director’s Cio-Cio San of choice remembers a remarkable collaboration. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

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Tetzlaff’s Herculean Widmann concerto helps Robertson look forward and back.

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