No Corelli, but plenty of violins in some rare Italian concerti.

This ensemble Schütz and scores with music of the next generation.

Domenico Scarlatti’s collection of 555 sonatas for the harpsichord represents a unique output. Far more showy than most of his Baroque brethren, the sonatas are a kaleidoscope of swirling melodic lines and rapid runs. There are even a few that take their influence from the music that he must have heard at the courts of Spain – strummed guitars are never far away. Canadian pianist Luke Welch presents an all-Scarlatti recital comprising favourites like the Sonata in E Major, L23/K380. One of the oddest things about the harpsichord is that it can’t change volume, though composers got around this problem in some ingenious ways. So, when a performer plays Scarlatti’s music on the modern piano, they must also choose whether to take advantage of the piano’s full range of dynamics or to imitate the harpsichord. Welch sensibly doesn’t thunder away, but instead keeps to a more restricted dynamic range that evokes the older instrument in mood if not in timbre. This is an assured performance, though awfully short, with the eight tracks on the disc coming in at a smidgen over 35 minutes. I’d have definitely liked a few more to build the recording to a more… Continue reading Get…

From Falla to Michael Jackson, the cello and guitar duo talk about their tour plans and the pleasures of Australian coffee.

The star of the show on this disc is the Sonata in B Flat Major, K454, which Mozart famously composed so rapidly that he didn’t have time to write the piano part out for performance.

The Grigoryan Brothers have impressed in recent years with their ability to genre-hop without ever seeming out of place; their collaboration with the Tawadros brothers a few years ago was excellent. The repertoire here is primarily performances of vocal favourites by Dvorˇák, Fauré, Elgar, and Tchaikovsky, among others, re-worked for guitar duo. There are a few issues with the repertoire selection in that some pieces are rather more effective than others. For example, Rachmaninov’s famous Vocalise comes off a distinct second-best for a simple reason – the guitar’s lack of sustain means that the notes disappear long before they should. In some of the pieces, the duo seems to have realised this dilemma. Tchaikovsky’s None but the Lonely Heart is taken at such a rapid clip that it’s done and dusted in about two minutes, whereas most recordings usually take at least a minute more. Since this is simply the nature of the instrument, pieces that don’t rely quite so much on a single sustained note work considerably better. Manuel de Falla’s set of Seven Spanish Folk Songs are played very effectively, though I wish there was more rhythmic bite in some of them – Jacqueline du Pré… Continue reading Get…

If you’ve seen any Australian period-instrument orchestras you’ve probably seen Tommie Andersson playing the theorbo as part of the continuo. He’s quite an institution by now, having co-founded the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra as well as co-directing Ludovico’s Band. This CD, however, is a recording from the mid-1980s of Andersson performing as part of a guitar/lute duo with Hållbus Totte. What’s particularly unusual, however, is that the disc is of traditional Swedish folk fiddle music. It was planned to come out on a specialist folk-music label, but for one reason or another was never released. Now, more than 30 years later, the album is finally available. Apparently Swedish folk music doesn’t usually use much in the way of plucked instruments, so the duo were something of a rarity when they first arrived on the scene. If that’s the case, you’d never know it. Switching freely between classical guitars and lutes, the polskas here sound completely natural in their new duo format. On several tracks the duo is joined by fiddlers – and the owners of the record label the album was intended to be released on – Magnus Bäckström and Per Gudmundson, a quartet collectively known as the… Continue reading Get…

This new disc from Erato brings together the most prominent members of the Bach family – JS, JC, CPE in concerti and WF in a short keyboard piece. Johann Sebastian ran a musical society named Collegium Musicum (which was founded by Telemann!), and often gave concerts at the local Café Zimmermann. I have to say that I rather like the idea of drinking a coffee and listening to a newly-written Bach concerto. The art is a nice change from the portraits of Bach that so often wind up appearing on the cover of CDs. Flip open the cover here and there’s Rondeau himself relaxing in a forest, looking like he could fit right in with hip folksters like Devendra Banhart or Iron & Wine. That being said, the styling of the performers makes absolutely no difference to the sound, so how does he play? Very well, as it turns out… but with some decidedly odd phrasing in some places. In the tutti passages everything goes swimmingly. The orchestral playing is powerful and decisive, the harpsichord nicely recorded. However, once Rondeau hits the cadenzas, he injects ritardandos in every few bars. I found this a little affected and,… Continue reading Get…

Richard Egarr, Director of the Academy of Ancient Music describes Viennese composer Castello’s music as “utterly boundless in its virtuosity, imagination and colour, and would take anything we could throw at it in performance.” Well, he’s right. Although Dario Castello isn’t terribly well known these days since almost no biographical information about him has survived, back in the early 17th century he was celebrated across Europe with reprint after reprint of his Sonate Concertate. Subtitled in Stil Moderno (in the modern style), these unusual pieces live up to their description by including rapid-fire wind passages and sections that change mood at the drop of a hat. It’s a bit CPE Bach-esque in that Castello seems to delight in confounding both listeners and players with unexpected twists and turns. Castello realised that this sort of thing meant that the pieces were tricky to play but wouldn’t have any of it, writing that although the sonatas “may appear difficult, their spirit will not be destroyed by playing them more than once…this will render them very easy.” Helpful advice! There’s a focus on the winds here, with wind instruments appearing in solo form across a solid three-quarters of the… Continue reading Get unlimited…

After a hand injury in 2005, Kyung Wha Chung stepped away from the concert platform and turned to teaching. More than a decade later, this is her triumphant return to recording. Although Chung had recorded Partita No 2 and Sonata No 3 back in 1975, this disc is the complete Bach Sonatas and Partitas. They’re the solo violin Everest, since the player is completely exposed, without the reassuring safety net of an accompanist. At the same time, Bach demands the player navigate a thicket of interlocking lines of music. Tricky! This is quite a different recording to most recent performances of these pieces. By now, there’s a fairly firmly ingrained tendency towards historically informed performances of Bach’s music, but here Chung neatly sidesteps the issue. It’s not that she ignores the HIP movement (on the contrary – tempos are fleet here, and vibrato is kept on the subtle side), but more that minor quibbles about stylistic approaches are exchanged for an intensely passionate performance. Chung describes this disc as a project that has been with her for 60 years, calling it “recording Unaccompanied Bach”, and it seems like those capital letters are important. This is… Continue reading Get unlimited digital…

Although it’s tempting to think of period performance as consisting mainly of lutes and viols, the reality is far from that! This is a recording of Brahms’ Piano Quartet No 1 in G Minor and the Piano Quintet in F Minor as he would have heard it. The three string players use gut-strung instruments and Neal Peres Da Costa plays a replica of Brahms’ Streicher grand piano. Along with Ironwood’s extensive exploration of performance practice of the late 19th century, this all adds up to quite a different sound.   I have to admit that I find a significant number of Brahms recordings woefully heavy and ponderous. These recordings, however, are quite the opposite. I suspect that it’s Ironwood’s careful research into the performance of the music of Brahms and his contemporaries that gives these performances a lightness that’s refreshing. Most recordings that I’ve heard of the Piano Quintet tend to emphasise the power of many of the passages, but for once ensemble passages are not completely overpowering. The liner notes point out that one of the key elements of Brahms’ own performances was the avoidance of metronomic playing, calling it “free, very elastic and expansive”. Perhaps… Continue reading Get…

CPE Bach performances that blow everything else away.