Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt initially became known for her Bach but lately she has ranged farther afield with composers such as Chabrier and Fauré. The last eight years have seen her gradually recording the complete Beethoven piano sonatas. This is the first disc in that series I have heard, and it is just terrific. In this program, Hewitt brings together the sunniest of the late sonatas (No 28, Op 101), the wittiest of the middle period sonatas (No 18: Op 31, No 3) and the rarely played Sonata No 11, Op 27. Without going to inappropriate extremes, she relishes dynamic contrasts and pays attention to detail with unfailing subtlety –yet, far from sounding studied, her playing retains a sense of spontaneity. Take the Allegro finale of the A Major sonata: Switching unexpectedly from exuberance to tenderness, intimate one moment and forthright the next, Hewitt makes it sound like a brilliant improvisation. Hewitt’s thoughtful, responsive performance of Sonata No 11 makes one wonder why the piece is not more popular (competition is fierce among the Beethoven sonatas, admittedly!) The first and third movements show us the composer in a playful mood, handling musical motifs like a juggler, while the second movement……

Benjamin Britten’s three string quartets are not the only works he wrote for this medium but they are certainly the most important, forming cornerstones of his compositional career. The First, composed in America in 1941, comes from the period when the young composer was still showing off his extraordinary technical prowess. The Second, which concludes with a 15-minute chaconne of Beethovenian depth, was written in the wake of Peter Grimes, while the Third, at the end of his life, quotes from his final opera Death in Venice. Thanks to the recent Britten centenary, several new recordings of his quartets are now on the market, including one by the Endellion Quartet (Warner Classics), and a two-disc set from the Emperor Quartet on the BIS label. The latter boasts detailed and polished performances, but the Takács players trump them in verve and emotional commitment. How well the Takács capture the intensity of the Second Quartet’s Vivace movement, or the power and grandeur of the Chacony’s closing bars. They miss a degree of introversion and nostalgia in the Third Quartet, where Britten – like his friend Shostakovich – uses the medium to make a highly personal statement, in this case one of farewell….

Unlike some of today’s prodigies, Rusian pianist Daniil Trifonov (b. 1992) shows every sign of artistic maturity in this live recital, given at New York’s Carnegie Hall in February 2013, where he made his American debut in 2009, aged 18. Two years ago he recorded a Chopin disc for Decca, but this live recital truly puts him on the world stage and signifies a distinguished career ahead. Trifonov’s program comprises the Liszt B Minor Sonata, Scriabin’s Second Piano Sonata, Chopin’s 24 Preludes Op 28 and a short piece by Medtner. The contents of that program suggest his great Soviet predecessor, Sviatoslav Richter. Trifonov does not approach Richter in sheer power and concentration – who ever could? – yet he has more to offer than merely spectacular technique. Subtle and affecting at the soft end of the dynamic spectrum, Trifonov also understands “the demonic element” (as his champion Martha Argerich put it). His Liszt Sonata is truly grounded. Last year I was impressed by Khatia Buniatshvili’s recording, which fizzed with edgy energy, but Trifonov’s less volatile but no less expressive approach properly anchors the work. His lyrical gift is evident in the way he coaxes the chorale theme out of the depths…

This disc of mid-20th Century American piano concertos is a polished affair. Wang’s brilliant pianism is infectious and appropriately lyrical for the slow movement of Barber’s concerto. The Scottish orchestra under Peter Oundjian brings power to their role in the proceedings. Chandos maintains its usual high standard. And that should be it – but it isn’t. The problem concerns the two jazz-influenced pieces. Simply put, Wang doesn’t swing. To give an example, the piano licks in the third movement of the Gershwin are given a scherzando treatment: impressively achieved, but not what Gershwin was getting at. Underneath the Lisztian decoration is a streetwise toughness that eludes these musicians. Copland’s early concerto is one of the few where he referenced 1920s jazz. Again, Wang does not know what to make of this element. Missing the music’s louche cheekiness, she simply sounds awkward. To hear what is missing, turn to Copland and Bernstein (Sony). To rediscover Gershwin’s brash cityscape, try Earl Wild with the Boston Pops, or a 1954 Decca recording by Julius Katchen with Mantovani and His Orchestra (!), which is even more idiomatic. Katchen squeezes out every last drop of ragtime (as does Wild). And, fine as Wang and Oundjian are in…

This release is a sequel to the earlier Decca Sound box set. It covers the years of Decca’s analogue “Full Frequency Range Recording”, starting with the company’s earliest stereo recordings from 1954 –Ansermet conducting the Suisse Romande Orchestra in music by Rimsky-Korsakov, Glazunov, Balakirev and Liadov – and finishing in 1980 just prior to the advent of digital recording, with Dutoit conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra in tone poems by Saint-Saëns. The bonus CD gives us the Ansermet Russian program in its original mono, for comparative purposes. Unlike the earlier box, this is not presented as a best performance collection; rather, it is designed to showcase the peak of Decca’s sound quality over those analogue decades. And indeed it does: the sound of Fistoulari’s highlights from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake holds up stunningly (recorded with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1961), not to mention Solti’s visceral Mahler Resurrection Symphony with Heather Harper, Helen Watts and the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus from 1966. Sometimes the sound is of its time. When Decca producers recorded opera in the late 1950s and early 1960s they preferred a cavernous space with the voices set back  – an opera house acoustic – yet the clarity and presence…

Dawn Upshaw tours with the ACO after their triple grammy whammy. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

This live performance was given in the Royal Festival Hall, London, in February 2011. The London Philharmonic has a proud Mahler tradition – they were Tennstedt’s orchestra in the 1980s – and they have released some excellent Mahler performances recently on their house label (notably Jurowski’s readings of Symphonies 1 and 2). This is another. Nézet-Séguin’s pacing of this work (with one arguable exception) is pretty much perfect. How neatly he places the explosive transition into the veritable circus march at the point in Von der Schönheit where the poem depicts a galloping steed plunging through the countryside. The all-important closing section of Der Abschied is well done too: not drawn out interminably but allowed to wind down to its last fading sixth chord in a truly affecting manner. The orchestra plays with great precision and expression throughout. The soloists are also very good. Toby Spence (to my surprise) reveals himself to have the burnished heldentenor voice required for his first and third songs, with a ringing top but also plenty of strength in the middle register. He knows what he is singing about, finding the undercurrent of desperation (just as Sarah Connolly beautifully expresses the melancholy at the heart……

This is one of a number of new releases commemorating the 50th anniversary of Paul Hindemith’s death. His three Piano Sonatas were all written in the same year, 1936, after he’d fled the Nazis. (Hindemith wasn’t Jewish – the Nazis just hated his music.) The sonatas, while clearly from the same pen, have distinct profiles: the dramatic First has an improvisatory feel, the Second is lighter and the Third the most formally disciplined, with a Bach influence in its fugal finale. The booklet note states: “Hindemith… viewed the piano as providing a… neutral tone colouring through which the movement and intertwining of tones, themes and lines could be contemplated”. That may not be the whole story, but it seems to be how Markus Becker views this music. While far from being neutral in expression, his approach is thoughtful and balanced. Becker has a great many pluses: He brings coherence to the First Sonata, and the Third’s Sehr lebhaft movement positively flows (fluency in Hindemith – as opposed to, say, Chopin – does not come automatically. It requires hard work.) But for all his finesse there is one crucial aspect missing here: an underlying wildness that places Hindemith fairly and squarely…

This issue serves to remind us what a gifted and supremely intelligent pianist we have in Roger Woodward. The program (lasting over 81 minutes) comes from a live concert recorded in 2007 in Bremen – a town notable for fine musicians. It encompasses Bach, Chopin and Debussy. For each of these three very different composers Woodward adopts a rigorously appropriate touch and approach. There is a current tendency to go for clarity in Debussy, from fine pianists such as Zimerman and Thibaudet, but Woodward tends towards the evocative approach of Walter Gieseking (without Gieseking’s occasional wrong notes). From the gossamer opening of Brouillards (Mists) to the random bursts of colour in the concluding Feux d’artifice (Fireworks), he creates specific tone pictures. Woodward’s playing of the first three Chopin Mazurkas underlines the music’s origins in dance. Rubato is expertly and subtly applied. Finally, he brings authority to the Bach, employing the attributes of the piano, such as the sustaining pedal, but remaining clear as a bell in emphasising the polyphonic strands. He also utilizes expressive devices of the Baroque era that older Bach pianists like Fischer and even Gould tended to avoid. Only in the Sarabande do I find this slightly…

Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt has played the music of Gabriel Fauré all her life. As she admits in her notes, he is an elusive composer. Aspects of Schumann surface in his early Nocturnes, their accompaniments containing tricky cross-rhythms, yet the Valse Caprice No 1, Op 30 has all the surface sparkle of Saint-Saëns. Fauré is too subtly complex to be regarded as a mere salon composer, although for years that is how pianists thought of him. Hewitt is aware of the contradictory sides composer, and does not restrain herself in terms of sheer power of attack when necessary. The central part of her program consists of three Nocturnes. No 6 in D Flat is the best known, a waltz with a seemingly simple (but harmonically unpredictable) opening melody supported by rippling arpeggios. No 13, from 1921, pares back all superfluous decoration to reveal the composer’s final thoughts for his favourite instrument (like Beethoven, Fauré went deaf in old age). Hewitt’s phrasing, dynamic variations and strength serve the composer well. Her recital closes with the early Ballade (later scored by the composer for piano and orchestra). Here I felt her to be too heavy-handed. The dry, light touch of Jean-Philippe Collard…

Early music royalty rock the recital hall to bring the first week of Sydney Festival’s classical program to a rousing conclusion. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Here are two exceptional reissues. The Brahms consists of 1980s recordings featuring András Schiff with the Takács Quartet in the F Minor Piano Quintet, and with Viennese colleagues in the Horn and Clarinet Trios. VPO principal clarinetist Peter Schmidl is heard in the Clarinet Quintet. If that weren’t enough, Schiff plays the four-hand Variations on a Theme of Schumann, joined by no less a partner than Georg Solti. This fine collection covers works from all periods of Brahms’s life, but is especially recommendable for the autumnal late works. An interesting comparison may be made with the heart-on-sleeve Clarinet Quintet played by a Viennese ensemble of an earlier era, in the massive but treasurable Westminster Chamber Music collection. Fascinating generational differences. The ASMF disc restores Argo recordings from 1968 when Neville Marriner still played violin with the ensemble. Boccherini’s late quintet (one of over a hundred of the composer’s works in this form) is typically gentle and mellifluous, while Mendelssohn’s Octet is a recognised masterpiece. Both are very well played, though I think the Academy’s English good manners suit Boccherini better. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in