The Tokyo String Quartet have announced that their 2012–2013 concert season will be their last. Founded in 1969, the group has made a name for itself as one of the world’s leading chamber music ensembles, especially in the Beethoven string quartets. They have been artists-in-residence at Yale School of Music since 1977, and toured Australia for Musica Viva in 2009. Last year, the quartet announced that two founding members, violinist Kikuei Ikeda and violist Kazuhide Isomura, were retiring, and the remaining two, violinist Martin Beaver and cellist Clive Greensmith, had instigated an international search for replacements. But they have called off the headhunters. “It is a difficult prospect to replace one long-standing quartet member,” said Beaver, but “to replace two of them simultaneously is a Herculean task. “With the retirement of our colleagues in our minds, we increasingly felt over the last few months that the most fitting way we could honour and celebrate our quartet’s long and illustrious career was to bring it to a graceful close.” Added Greensmith, “It has been a humbling and extraordinary experience to be part of such an ensemble, but it is time to step away from the hectic travel schedule and allow each…

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Andreas Scholl has come a long way since singing Bach as a boy chorister with his local church. The experience instilled in him a deep affinity for this repertoire, as evidenced by several fine discs for Harmonia Mundi. For Decca, the German countertenor has released an album featuring two of the most famous solo cantatas, each showcasing the sonorous, sinewy strength of his tone, particularly when it is focused on long, sombre lines. With assured diction he brings out the meaning of the text, most persuasively the haunting catharsis that comes with a wish for death in BWV82. Kammerorchester Basel’s tempo in Ich habe genug, intended to play to Scholl’s strengths, crawls along at the same pace as Janet Baker’s classic if somewhat old-fashioned reading on EMI. Scholl is all subtlety and poise, using minimal vibrato and eschewing the histrionics that have dogged the aria elsewhere, but his efforts to convey the words compromise the fluidity of the sublime melody. The final movement Ich Freue Mich auf Meinen Tod, which usually hastens towards the desired release of death, here drags with little tonal or dynamic variation. Scholl finds his way back to the freer approach of his… Continue reading Get unlimited…

The Australian Chamber Orchestra went on a pub crawl to find the perfect venue for their next gig. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in