I hate to sound like an old fogy here but I guess it’s unavoidable. James Rhodes is a British pianist whose rocketing career is fuelled by media-savvy management, celebrity endorsements and an individual presentational style combining the downmarket look of Nigel Kennedy with a troubled rock star rep: a history of mental issues, a failed marriage, and the inevitable refusal to toe the line. While many classical musicians have had broken marriages and some have suffered breakdowns, few have used that information to market a persona. (Rhodes is a better pianist than David Helfgott, incidentally.)  Rhodes’ notes on the music are subtly ingratiating: the Toccata from Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin is “me wrestling with London Transport as I head off on the tube to see my shrink”. What it is not, in Rhodes’ splashy rendition, is a meticulous salute to the Baroque clavecinist.The Scherzo from Beethoven’s Sonata Op 31 No 3 suits Rhodes with its snappy sforzandi, but other fast pieces are messy (single movements from sonatas by Alkan and Chopin), while Debussy’s La plus que Lente and Ravel’s Pavane lack poetry. This release is aimed at people who don’t know the music. That’s to be encouraged, no doubt, but…

Florent Schmitt (1870-1958) was a contemporary of Ravel, Roussel and Dukas, and like them he wrote music for the ballet, including Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. In the early decades of the 20th century his name was well known but his reputation suffered after the 1930s. The reasons were partly personal – Schmitt was a cantankerous personality and Nazi sympathiser – but also his richly orchestrated, fulsomely chromatic style fell out of fashion. The three works on this stunningly recorded disc are among Schmitt’s better-known. His ballet The Tragedy of Salome was written at exactly the same time as Richard Strauss’s opera, although the opera was performed first and its notoriety overshadowed the Frenchman’s score. The ballet is packed with “orientalisms”, cymbal-topped climaxes and disembodied melismatic sopranos. Big on atmosphere and beautifully played, the performance is subdued compared to the ancient Paray version (Mercury) and the white-hot performance from the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic (Onyx).  Psalm 47 is a setting of biblical verses for soprano, large choir and orchestra. It employs the same exotic palette, but here the prolonged choral fortes and relentless climaxes invoke the law of diminishing returns. A few calm moments, usually involving the excellent Susan Bullock, provide welcome respite….

Bach’s 30 variations on an original theme, BWV 988, constitute a challenging monument of the keyboard literature. This work bookended the recording career of Glenn Gould. The eccentric Canadian taped a youthful, dazzling performance in 1955, and a more deeply contemplative one in 1981, just prior to his untimely death. The variety of contemporary styles Bach drew on allows performers differing but equally legitimate approaches. Into this mix, we must add the piano-versus-harpsichord question (personally, I love Bach on the piano).  This disc by American pianist Nicholas Angelich is a winner. As there is no biography with it, let me fill in the gaps: born in 1970, Angelich studied in Paris with Loriod, Béroff and Ciccolini, and has previously recorded Brahms for this label. He uses every expressive device at his disposal. He decorates the theme heavily, and also the French variations in compound time, yet he varies his touch to make an Italian epidosde like the rapid No 5 less relentless. He is subtle in the canonic variations, allowing the slower ones to sing like Chopin. In this way his performance recalls the wonderful Telarc recording by Simone Dinnerstein.  Some pianists (like Gould in 1981) play the main theme slower and softer on…

The works in this program were composed after Liszt abandoned the life of a touring virtuoso and settled in Weimar. There, in Goethe’s city, he composed his Faust Symphony, and a Faustian program has sometimes been attributed to his Piano Sonata. The 23-year-old Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili would agree. In her liner notes she finds parallels with Faust throughout the program. Yet while her writings suggest that all you need to master this music is a metaphysical context, she neglects to mention the physical side (probably through modesty). Buniatishvili’s technical prowess enables her to combine energy with precision at a level comparable to Argerich – indeed this is the most exciting debut performance of the Liszt Sonata since Argerich recorded it in 1960. Her intellectual rigour also allows her to plot the mercurial changes of pace, weight and speed that are built into its structure. Her allegros are imbued with Faustian recklessness. Her Liebestraum radiates a purity associated with Marguerite, while her Mephisto Waltz has power but also a light touch that can only be labelled Mephistophelian. She has two attributes necessary for a Lisztian: she never bangs the piano in double fortes, and she makes everything sound if not…

Excerpts from Star Wars, Harry Potter, Superman etc. Shaun Micallef; SSO/Guy Noble Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, August 12 Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

It is hardly surprising that the Australian-born Leslie Howard has been typecast as a Liszt pianist: he recorded the Hungarian master’s complete piano works on 99 CDs. It is therefore interesting to hear him in other music, even if it is not far removed from his specialty. The two composers were both known as phenomenal lions of the keyboard, but what Rachmaninov also requires is depth of feeling. The last of the great Romantics, his piano music is imbued with a distinctively Russian angst. A full, deep tone is required to express the melancholy in his slow music and the barely concealed savagery in his turbulent climaxes. Howard meets these demands, and puts them to good use in the earlier D minor Sonata (1907). In this work there is a sense of the composer stretching his wings: his habitual use of sequential passages in place of development is rather transparent, especially as the melodic content is not all that memorable. Howard finds moments of pure tranquillity in the slow movement but strikes me as heavy-handed in the rhythmically charged finale. The B flat minor Sonata is more mature. An entrancing slow movement opens with Scriabin-like chromatic harmony… Continue reading Get…

Marc-André Hamelin is one of the greatest pianists alive today. His technique is superhuman, as is his memory for the reams of notes penned by Alkan and Godowsky. He has recorded many fine discs for Hyperion, which is fortunate as it gives the potential buyer plenty to choose instead of this one. Of all the German late-Romantics, Max Reger is the hardest to love. His textures are thick, his themes unmemorable and his dense counterpoint impenetrable. His best pieces are sets of variations on themes by other composers: Mozart, Hiller and Bach. Left to his own devices, as in this bloated Brahmsian concerto from 1910, his worst habits come to the fore, including haste: he composed and scored the 38-minute monster in a matter of weeks. Contemporary critics were scathing – and rightly so. Out of those 38 minutes at least 30 are a waste of Hamelin’s time, including the entire third movement where the soloist flails about like a wounded animal struggling to escape the endless chromatic sequences. The unprepared final D-major chord is ridiculous. I have owned an RCA disc of this coupling for years (rarely played) with the excellent Irish pianist Barry Douglas. I would have thought…

In 1819 the publisher Anton Diabelli asked several composers each to write a single variation on a fairly nondescript waltz of his own. Beethoven set the task aside for four years – possibly the collegiate nature of the commission held little appeal – but eventually returned to Diabelli’s theme, proceeding to de- and re-construct every aspect of it in a monumental set of 33 variations. A major work, it postdates the piano sonatas and was composed at the same time as the Choral Symphony. This is late Beethoven, the deaf and obsessive composer who pushed the envelope and for whom an executant’s stamina was no longer a consideration. The variations display a double dose of virtuosity. For one thing, they stretch the pianist technically: the rapid Variations 17, 25 and 28 are as dazzling and difficult as any of Chopin’s Etudes. They also showcase the brilliance of Beethoven’s musical imagination. Paul Lewis has recorded Beethoven’s sonatas and concertos to great acclaim. While he responds to the gradations of tone and dynamics required, he is more “old-school” than some other young pianists (Brendel was his mentor). Some critics have found Lewis stolid, even dull: I don’t think so at all. His…

Two previous solo recordings by the British soprano Kate Royal displayed her broad musical interests and imaginative programming. Her new CD is equally thoughtful. Rather than structure a recital in the usual “four groups plus two encores” format, Royal has devised a story arc for her album. This “lesson in love” concerns a young girl’s journey from the anticipation of romance, meeting Mr Right, their marriage, and his ultimate betrayal. Opening with the little-known Waitin’ by William Bolcom, Royal fits many well-loved songs into the scenario, including Schubert’s Gretchen am Spinnrade, Duparc’s Extase, Britten’s setting of the folksong O Waly, Waly and three songs from Schumann’s Myrthen. Waitin’ is sung again at the very end by the now worldly-wise protagonist, this time with a more pensive and knowing attitude. Most of the 28 songs fit the storyline neatly; only a couple, such as Danny Boy, seem to come from out of nowhere. Royal’s soprano is surprisingly strong, though not naturally warm. She hails from a line of British singers that includes Felicity Lott, Margaret Price and the Australian Elsie Morison. Occasionally at forte her very top register takes on a raw quality, although in Gretchen her high notes are perfectly…

This disc introduces an impressive duo. Perhaps “introduces” is not the correct term for 25-year-old Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang, already a star of the European festival circuit. Anne-Sophie Mutter chose her to play second fiddle (literally) in the Bach Double Concerto on a recent tour. Frang has also recorded Sibelius and Prokofiev concertos, but this is the first time we’ve heard her in a chamber setting and the result is compelling.  In the Grieg and Strauss sonatas, Frang is accompanied by another young virtuoso. Lifits was born in Uzbekistan in 1982, and won the Busoni International Piano Competition in 2009. As a team they achieve real symbiosis: listen to the way they press forward and pull back in the 3/4 movement of the Grieg sonata, sharpening each nuance and finding the precise textural weight in perfect sync. Their program is attractive and far from hackneyed. Grieg’s Third Violin Sonata is his chamber masterpiece, but I had not heard the youthful First. These artists reveal it to be the exuberant outpouring of an inspired and vigorous young composer. Frang and Lifits also find warmth and tenderness in the young Strauss’s Sonata. In between, Frang gives a strong, detailed rendition of Bartók’s…

A first-class production of absorbing music.

Artists of Kempf's calibre should be treasured.