★★★☆☆ Before the live performance of Prokofiev’s Second Symphony, Kirill Karabits warned the audience of an “ear-lashing”. Bearing in mind the disproportionate number of retired majors and active Tory matrons among the Bournemouth Symphony’s subscriber base, I suppose it was wise. Personally, I’d put the first movement’s shock factor (and it’s really only the first movement which has that motoric Age of Steel quality) at around that of The Rite of Spring. It won’t blow your mind (or your speakers). Despite the obvious commitment of Karabits and his players, I didn’t find the work particularly interesting. But what an incredible advance between this and its immediate symphonic predecessor! The Classical Symphony (No 1) had some lovely moments, especially in the second movement but here, it’s a case of the excellent being the enemy of the merely very good. I still have the mellifluous felicities of the London Symphony’s Sydney performance under Gergiev last November lingering in my ears. What was interesting was the Sinfonietta, an unjustly neglected work which I’ve encountered only as a fill-up to a late ‘70s recording of Ivan the Terrible. It demonstrates… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber?…

This combination is even more bizarre than when Klemperer and Barenboim teamed up to record the Beethoven Piano Concertos almost 50 years ago. Any initial misgivings back then were quickly dispelled: the cycle was a triumph. Lang Lang, by contrast, provided one of the most scarifying musical experiences of my life at a 2011 recital in Sydney (complete with mewling infant) with his clueless Beethoven and Albéniz so unidiomatic I gazed up at the ceiling and thought of Larrocha and Rubenstein. These CDs are mainly a pleasant surprise. Harnoncourt, whose Mozart I generally revere, (although I was bemused to read one blog that said he seemed “out of his depth here”) also has irritating tics (not to mention his “concepts”) but the collaboration works. I hope it doesn’t sound patronising to say Lang Lang is on his best behaviour and his Mozart sounds endearingly old-fashioned and elegant rather than just careful. There’s not much sturm und drang in the C Minor Concerto and it’s a universe away from what we routinely hear from, say, Brautigam and Levin, but the Vienna Philharmonic’s winds are gorgeous in their exchanges in the… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe…

Its policy towards female musicians, the behaviour of both administration and players towards Jewish colleagues during the Second World War, its variable performance standards and its exaggerated, hypocritical, archaic formality have all made the Vienna Philharmonic the most enigmatic of great orchestras. The fact that John Culshaw, arguably the greatest recording producer of the 20th century (and genius), who did more than anyone to create the orchestra’s recorded legacy, was expected to regard his invitation to attend a meeting of the Orchestra’s board as a singular honour, says it all. In fact, Culshaw’s contribution to what Germans/Austrians call a festschrift, or series of celebratory articles, contains some of the more honest comments. To paraphrase him, “At its best, it’s sublime; anything less is usually pretty awful.” Mahler, as the Director of the Vienna State (Court) Opera, observed this more than a century ago when he referred to schlamperei masquerading as “tradition” among the State Opera Orchestra, from which all VPO players are drawn. Compared to the Berlin Philharmonic or the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, it was less versatile. In… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto is, more or less, in the mainstream but, I have to confess, I’d actually forgotten that he actually wrote a second! Tetzlaff is up with the best in virtually anything he does and his performance and interpretation is very fine. My favourite movement is always the introductory Nocturne, with its sinuous (and in this case sinewy theme). The two even numbered movements provide colour and movement with all the deliberately sinister overtones of forced hilarity and rejoicing they always convey in Shostakovich’s scores. Tetzlaff is alive to every nuance here. In the great Passacaglia, the work’s center of gravity, he is genuinely moving with rock steady tone and dignified phrasing. Of course David Oistrakh, for whom both works were written, casts an eternally long shadow. Nonetheless, Tetzlaff is eminently recommendable. The Second Concerto was composed in 1966 and is a very different kettle of fish. More sparsely orchestrated, it consists of mainly slow music until the last minutes. The first movement has the sphinx-like inscrutability common to many Shostakovich late scores and the second tends to meander. Tetzlaff is impressive here, but it’s not surprising the work features rarely in concert. Ondine’s sound, Storgårds’ conducting and……

No other composer, in my experience, had such a warm and simple character (but a multi-faceted musical personality) as Joseph Haydn. Widely contrasting elements of Rococo delicacy and sturdiness combine with exuberance and melancholy, seriousness and wit, forcefulness and elegance. However, unlike Mozart, Haydn’s only concertos to have fared well are the two cello concertos (one discovered relatively recently) and his trumpet concerto. Neither the violin nor the keyboard concertos have entered the Haydn ‘canon’. In the case of the keyboard concertos, it’s not for want of distinguished advocacy: In the mid ‘70s, Michelangeli (of all people ) recorded two with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra under Edmund de Stoutz and, more recently, pianists of the calibre of Andsnes and Hamelin have essayed their considerable charms, with impressive and persuasive results. Now, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet has interrupted his Haydn Sonata cycle with three genuine concertos ie. the three without textural or chronological ambiguity to cast doubt on their authenticity. Bavouzet has been around for a while but recently he’s entered the “Is there anything this guy can’t do?” stratosphere with an acclaimed Beethoven Sonata cycle, an award winning Prokofiev Concerto cycle, Debussy, and miraculous Ravel, as heard in his Sydney recital last…

In my recent review of Petrenko’s recording of Shostakovich’s Fourteenth Symphony, I said it made his other lugubrious works sound like Offenbach. Well, I spoke too soon. Despite excellent playing, conducting and engineering, I strongly recommend against anyone in anything like a fragile state listening to this CD. Mørk has covered these works before but I doubt whether those recordings could top these. The Oslo Philharmonic’s accompaniment certainly reinforces Petrenko’s reputation as one of the great Shostakovich conductors of our age. Mørk also distinguishes himself throughout, conveying the gruesome parade of fear, anxiety, despair, grotesquerie and sheer bafflement. They keep the first movement of the First Concerto moving in a business- like way, making it even more sinister. In their hands, the final movement’s inclusion of a supposedly favourite folk song of Stalin is more sardonic than ever, while the threnody-like second movement sees a few green shoots of warmth and lyricism. The Second is far less known and for me the most telling moment, especially in the current international context, was the way the orchestral climax in the first movement is brutally quelled by the bass drum, as if to kill any momentum. Petrenko and Mørk’s tempi in… Continue reading Get unlimited digital…

Basing a Mendelssohn cycle on his appearances in Birmingham with the local band is a rather jejune connection. Was there anywhere Mendelssohn didn’t go? That said, I greatly enjoyed these performances in which Edward Gardner, yet another glamorous and talented young conductor, cuts a swathe through familiar works. I’ve never heard the last movement of the Italian Symphony dispatched with such brio. It’s altogether sunnier than Brüggen’s recent recording. I also commend the way Gardner observes the first movement repeat, which has what must be the loveliest ‘lead backs’ in music. The Reformation Symphony was composed to mark the 300th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession, a major milestone in the formation of the Lutheran Church. (Despite his Jewish heritage, Mendelssohn became a Lutheran convert.) In the Symphony, he uses ‘Catholic’ polyphony which is ultimately overcome by the Lutheran Chorale Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott. Scoring and structure are simultaneously grandly architectural and austere, though I was bemused to read one description of the waltz in the scherzo as “louche”. Calling anything by Mendelssohn “louche” is like saying one of Bruckner’s scherzos is “chic”. Chandos’s sound and the CBSO’s playing are gorgeous, especially the Principal Flute, which intones the hymn tune. This work deserves the same…

The BBC Symphony plays this Sibelius cycle very well, and the sound is as excellent as the playing.

I’ve long considered William Walton’s First Symphony as equal to Elgar’s two masterworks, although seriously underrated as one of the pillars of 20th-century symphonic repertoire. It also marked one of the great “breakthroughs’  in 20th-century music, when Walton served notice he had broken free of the louche, epicene aristocrats of his early creative life – from Bright Young Thing to Angry Young Man. I recently heard Walton’s music described as “tame”. I suggest the writer consult an audiologist. The First Symphony’s greatest recording is almost universally judged to be André Previn’s 1966 LSO, all the more amazing since Previn’s exposure to British music had been minimal. The composer’s own recording of the work with the old Philharmonia in its palmiest days was also excellent (giving the lie to the notion that most composers, except Bernstein, made lousy interpreters of their own scores). Previn’s reading captured the rubber-on-tarmac, pedal-to-the-metal velocity, brilliantly maintained tautness and rugged glamour, not to mention one of the best “travelling tunes” ever composed. Edward Gardner doesn’t surpass Previn in any of these but gives a performance that is, nonetheless, impressive and highly enjoyable. The timpani strokes in the first movement are also impressive in their precision. The…

In a review, one critic referred to the “period instrument colonization” of 20th-century French orchestral repertoire, which set me thinking about those fears we used to have about an historically informed performance of Wozzeck. I have many older LP recordings of French repertoire performed by French orchestras which are so distinctly “Gallic” in the slightly flatulent horn sound and the (usually) delightfully vinegary woodwind, as to be instantly identifiable. Over the decades, this sound has virtually disappeared. Perhaps these recordings mark a reaction. Immerseel and Anima Eterna achieve a sound in Mother Goose which, in terms of sheer exquisiteness, is hard to beat. I instantly admired the way the cor anglais has been caught but the flute and clarinet are equally beguiling. The strings are similarly gorgeous. Did anyone ever compose anything as civilized? Pictures at an Exhibition is equally suave, perhaps a touch too much so. I like the trumpet slurs throughout the promenade sections but I think this super-refined playing isn’t really earthy enough: after all, it’s hard to depict a Polish ox cart as anything other than a Polish ox cart. The Great Gate of Kiev lacks the grandeur we normally associate with it. My main problem is…

Chemistry between Gergiev and LSO on display in Prokofiev masterpiece. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Last year’s celebration of Australia’s musical elite diaspora, the Australian World Orchestra, (plus a few resident players) featured Zubin Mehta on the podium. I’ve always regarded Mehta as a superb “technician” but, apart from a wunderkind debut Bruckner Ninth, while still in his twenties with the Vienna Philharmonic, I’ve never found his interpretations particularly engaging. However, my reactions to this two CD set of the occasion has somewhat changed my thinking. Their performance of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, in its centenary year, is very fine- without challenging Doráti’s, Bernstein’s first New York version or Igor Markevich’s old Philharmonia (stereo) version where the orchestral shriek at the opening of the second section is truly blood curdling. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the treacherous opening bassoon passage so beautifully shaped. The woodwind is also beautifully captured throughout. Mehta’s tempi are steady rather than headlong. The performance of  Mahler’s First Symphony was a treat. Mehta included the discarded Blumine (“Flowers’) movement ( as he did in his Israel Philharmonic recording in the late eighties) although Mahler was probably right to remove it, as it sounds genuinely, as distinct from faux, naïve. The string playing was of a caliber we seldom hear…