Polished Bruckner and beatific Beethoven from Simone Young and the SSO.

This Bruckner Three augurs well for what I hope will be a complete Bruckner symphonic cycle. The Third is, with the Second, probably the most tinkered with. The best performance of this work I’ve ever heard was with this very orchestra under Kurt Sanderling on an Electrola LP. This orchestra has just the right Teutonic heft but, in the hands of Nelsons, assumes a real finesse (influenced by his work with the Boston Symphony?) in the softer Gesangsperioden (lyrical passages). For Bruckner anoraks, this is the 1889 version, described somewhat fancifully by one critic as the “Wham, bam, thank you ma’am” one, a sentiment one doubts the resolutely chaste composer ever experienced. Bruckner was far, at this stage, from exploring, consciously or otherwise, the pyschological undercurrents apparent in the Eighth and Ninth symphonies. Nelsons’ take has neither the (impressive) tempo  idiosyncrasies of Jochum, nor the glamorised sheen and sleek legato of Karajan, nor yet the craggy implacability of Klemperer. The great recording producer Walter Legge, once said that Moghul architecture was monumental but finished with the lapidary detail of a jewel – something that all successful Bruckner conductors always achieve. Nelsons is aware of the need to… Continue reading Get…

A mature work, still beguilingly beautiful after all these years.

These recordings are not without poetry – it’s just that there’s not enough of it.

These are wonderful performances, beautifully and naturally recorded, showcasing an artist with beguilingly beautiful tone and rock solid technique and intonation. Beethoven’s cello sonatas punctuate his oeuvre and the two early sonatas were trailblazers (Mozart ignored the cello as a solo instrument: even his string quintets featured a second viola) and it was not until the “middle” period A Major work that the structure seems confident. Oddly, that said, even the second last sonata, composed on the cusp of the middle-to-late period, has a slow movement lasting just over three minutes and it’s only in the final sonata that we find a full blown Adagio. Among many features that impressed me here were the mysterious depths plumbed in the sometimes awkward-sounding opening Adagios of the two early works, (especially the darker G Minor), which can seem like mere introductions in the wrong hands. Other structural tripwires successfully negotiated include the way Capuçon and Braley make a seamless transition to the ensuing Allegros after the opening Adagios and their ability to contrast the consecutive fast movements of the first two sonatas. The rapport between cellist and pianist is impressive throughout, with especially brilliant and spontaneous interplay in the… Continue reading Get…

I must confess to being “conflicted“ about this admittedly fine CD from Chandos – conflicted because, while marketing is not essentially part of my remit, I can’t help but wonder who actually buys this sort of repertoire. Like virtually everything Chandos produces, the sound, content, playing, conducting, presentation and liner notes are excellent but, nevertheless, is there a limit to how many CDs of mainly music by relatively obscure composers the market can absorb? It’s certainly not meant to belittle Rumon Gamba and his fine band. That said, this release could be called Ecstatic Solitude or Fifty Shades of Home Counties Pastoral Reveries. All the scores are lovely, tonal and mostly gentle and come into the highest category of 20th-century music for people who think they don’t like 20th-century music. All the more admirable as some was composed long after Schoenberg’s launch into atonality and The Rite of Spring. My favourite moments were, in no particular order, Frederic Austin’s Spring in its entirety, the Elgarian nobilmente march in the tragic Ivor Gurney’s A Gloucester Rhapsody (yes, I know Gloucestershire isn’t, strictly speaking, in the Home Counties) and the dramatic passages in the splendidly named Sir Granville Bantock’s The Witch of…

I was bemused to read, when perusing the publicity, that the three works here had been “curated”. I thought “curate” described an exhibition of objects (usually art works) which had been lent or borrowed from various sources. It’s stretching things to say three mainstream works performed in rapid succession in a loosely structured series have been curated! That said, these two CDs showcase the level David Robertson has brought the Sydney Symphony to during his tenure as Chief Conductor. The only problem with the complete Firebird ballet is that the first half, with its shimmering (and the SSO certainly knows how to shimmer – beautifully) textures seems to last forever: I found myself longing for something to happen amid all the colour and movement of the more familiar suites, which, when they finally arrived, were worth waiting for. Petrushka is probably the best prospect for “tunes”. Here, Robertson went for loud primary Kandinsky-like colours and textures, but also captured the sinister overtones of the sadistic Moor. The Rite of Spring was a real savage, not a “pet” one, to coin Stravinsky’s own rebarbative description of Karajan’s version of the work. (He also described his Dance of the… Continue reading Get…

It’s unusual to find an A-list conductor like Riccardo Chailly recording such (generally)  obscure music on an equally A-list label. Good for him! A few years ago he recorded a CD of some of Verdi’s non-operatic obscurities and this release co-incides with his arrival at La Scala, where 11 of these works were premiered. I didn’t find any neglected gems, but there are no duds either and the La Scala orchestra is wonderfully idiomatic in this fare. The programme is well arranged, with plenty of contrast between succeeding tracks and serves to demonstrate the development of the overture throughout the 19th century and on into the 20th. The earliest work here is Rossini’s Overture to La Pietra del Paragone (1812) (aka the overture to Tancredi) which illustrates the then typical slow introduction followed by a rowdy allegro, which was succeeded by examples like Verdi’s Overture to Il Finto Stanislao (1840) – still a real romp – and Bellini’s more famous Norma (1831), both of which could be termed  typical “medley” overtures, offering snatches of themes from the operas ahead. Chailly and his orchestra are especially impressive in the Norma. (They’re also alive to every nuance in… Continue reading Get unlimited…

This a strange compilation with a convoluted concept, can’t help but be amazed at the sound of the ASMF.

When the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Day concerts were first televised, I always enjoyed scanning the audience to see those elderly, distinguished, granite-jawed males, often with sabre-scarred cheeks, and their perma-tanned wives dripping with dubiously acquired bling. Nowadays, they’ve all gone to that great Vahalla in the sky, to be replaced more wholesomely by the likes of Angela Merkel and Dame Julie Andrews. I was interested to read recently that the world’s most predictable (and expensive) concert, with all its schmaltz and leaden, contrived humour, was originally a Nazi propaganda/morale boosting exercise, held on New Year’s Eve! This year’s effort was conducted by the 35-year-old Gustavo Dudamel (aka “The Dude”), the event’s youngest maestro ever. What fascinates me is just how much music the Strauss family composed: one of the pieces by Johann Strauss II this time was opus 436! They seem to have no trouble programming a concert of virtually unknown gems year after year. For me, this year’s hits were Waldteufel’s The Skaters’ Waltz, whose trumpet tune in the opening bars, the otherwise excellent liner notes bizarrely inform us, may have been inspired by the horn calls introducing Bruckner’s Third Symphony. Another gem, alone worth… Continue reading Get…

Tchaikovsky’s First Symphony, subtitled Winter Dreams, was composed when he was 26. It’s probably the best of his neglected early symphonies. Its gorgeous first movement conjures up images of young Romanov aristocrats being swept in sleighs through a winter wonderland and anticipates the snow scene in The Nutcracker ballet. Young Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado and the Orchestra of St Luke’s capture the magic here. My favourite version has always been the old DG Boston Symphony with a young Michael Tilson Thomas. These forces run them close. They give the second movement a uniquely Russian sense of rhapsodic yearning and exquisite melancholy, with beautifully detailed woodwind solos equally beautifully captured. It’s not the sort of repertoire one expects from Harmonia Mundi but the recording is superb! I don’t think The Tempest is quite out of the same drawer. While the opening depiction of the ocean is brilliant (it reminded me of Rimsky-Korsakov’s later evocation of the ocean in his Tsar Sultan Suite), the work tries to be both a mood picture and a psychological portrait of the main characters – Miranda and Ferdinand and their blossoming love, the grossness of Caliban, (cellos and double basses) and the… Continue reading Get unlimited…

A dignified performance, but does it come close to Bernstein's Enigma?