Why Johannes wasn’t ready for the pipe and slippers.

★★★★½ Young Barenboim carries on the family business in an impressive Sydney recital.

Following their acclaimed album of works by Arensky, British outfit Leonore Piano Trio moves to France to take on the three trios by Germanophile Édouard Lalo. These attractive works are full of melody, combining Gallic charm with a weightier feel. As Roger Nichols’ liner notes wittily describe the Scherzo in No 1: “rather like fairies dancing in lederhosen.” The Leonores – Benjamin Nabarro violin, Gemma Rosefield, cello and pianist Tim Horton – play with the assurance of noted soloists in their own right but also with precision and sensitivity as an ensemble.  Although Lalo was a violinist, playing in several of Berlioz’s concerts, it is the solo cello that introduces the first and last movements of the First Trio where the footprints of his musical hero Schumann lie deeply embedded. This serves as a reminder that the Frenchman also wrote a characteristically melodic and energetic concerto for cello. Schumann is also an influence in the passionate Second Trio, written a couple of years later in 1852. For the next 12 years Lalo suffered writer’s block until he remarried and his creative spark rekindled. This was the time of Symphonie Espagnole and eventual success. His Third Trio, from 1880, is a…

Lyric soprano Nicole Car has been tipped by Opera Australia’s Artistic Director Lyndon Terracini as the next big thing in opera, as confirmed by her recent triumphs at Covent Garden. “She has the genuine, real potential to be the most important Australian opera singer since Joan Sutherland,” he says. Terracini may have a vested interest, but if they haven’t already seen her, Sydney and Melbourne operagoers will get a chance to gauge what all the fuss is about when she stars in two Opera Australia productions this year: first in the title role of Verdi’s Luisa Miller and then as Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Così Fan Tutte. They can also get an idea from this, her first solo studio recording, which is excellently produced by the ABC Classics team. The 30 year-old from Essendon, Melbourne, built her reputation with roles like Tatyana in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Donna Elvira in Mozart’s Don Giovanni in 2014. Then last year she made a triumphant Royal Opera House debut in Onegin and as Micäela in Bizet’s Carmen (arias from both are featured on The Kiss). Car has a versatile voice – she started studying jazz singing before turning to orchestral – and this certainly…

★★★★½ Crack British outfit launches Sydney Opera House’s chamber music series. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

A fascinating survey of chamber works by Hitchcock's musical genius.

American soprano Latonia Moore’s performance in the title role alone makes this home-grown DVD in a crowded market worth a look.

Based on the premise that far more operas were written before 1750 than since, Pinchgut has been unearthing a rich stash of rediscovered treasures for Sydney audiences since 2002. Starting off with one production a year, the company under its Artistic Director Antony Walker has moved to two short seasons at the intimate City Recital Hall. For its 2014 offerings Pinchgut moved to the decade before the French Revolution to stage two contrasting works, Salieri’s comedy The Chimney Sweep and Gluck’s Euripidean saga of parricide, matricide and near-fratricide, Iphigénie en Tauride, which marked the 300th anniversary of the composer’s birth. You can now share the performance of the latter, containing some of Gluck’s finest music, with this live two-disc set. Premiered in Paris in 1789 Iphigénie was an instant hit and this disc shows why – the vocal and orchestral writing are both wonderful. The mystery is why it has taken so long for it to re-emerge from relative obscurity. Gluck pitches the listener straight into the dramatic action. Dispensing with an overture we hear the timpani signalling an approaching storm at sea off Scythia where Iphigénie, exiled after the goddess Diana saved her from being sacrificed by her father…

Editor’s Choice, Chamber – Jan/Feb 2016 In-between a heavy international concert schedule and fulfilling their teaching commitments as resident ensemble at the University of Colorado in Boulder, it’s a wonder that the Takács String Quartet finds time to record for the Hyperion label, let alone live their lives outside of music. Luckily for us they manage, and hot on the heels of their first recorded venture into the wintry landscape of Soviet Russia and Shostakovich with Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin (reviewed in October‘s Limelight), they bring a contrasting blaze of colour, warmth and emotion with their latest release. The three works on this disc are custom-made for the Takács with their fearless attack, faultless technique and dazzling emotional range. Just listen to Geraldine Walther’s driving viola work in the first piece, Bedrich Smetana’s From My Life. This is a remarkable autobiographical work, depicting in the first two movements the Czech composer’s youthful love of art, his fondness for dancing polkas and for folk tunes. The beautiful, yearning slow movement is given over to his first wife, who died from tuberculosis, and two of their daughters who didn’t survive childhood. Of the finale Smetana wrote: “The fourth movement describes my discovery…

If you saw David Robertson’s masterful concert version of Tristan und Isolde with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra earlier in the year you would be familiar with the compelling singing of US soprano Christine Brewer in the title role. Here she is 13 years earlier in an equally powerful performance recorded live at London’s Barbican Centre under the masterful baton of Scottish conductor Donald Runnicles.  Celebrated English tenor John Treleaven is a superbly convincing Tristan and there is a great chemistry between the pair. His is a many-layered performance as our hero runs the gamut of emotions over four exhausting hours. This stellar partnership is complemented by Czech mezzo Dagmar Pecková – a star in her own right and with an asteroid named after her to prove it – as Brangane and British bass Pete Rose gives King Mark’s big aria, Tatest du’s wirklich, a finely expressive reading with his nuanced timbre. Jared Holt makes a fine Melot as well. Israeli baritone Boaz Daniel impressed as Tristan’s faithful servant Kurwenal in Sydney and he does the same on this disc. Runnicles and the BBC Symphony are in fine form – the crescendos will clear the wax out of your ears. The…

Editor’s Choice, Opera – October 2015 Jonas Kaufmann was 21 when the Three Tenors made Nessun Dorma into the most popular aria of them all by featuring it in their 1990 concert on the eve of the FIFA World Cup Final. It’s taken 25 years for the star German tenor to put it on record, saying that for a long time he hardly dared sing it because of Pavarotti and Co’s legacy. “Even today, when I hear and sing this aria, I still get goosebumps,” he says in the liner notes to his new all-Puccini album. Well, the wait has been worth it as it makes the perfect finale to this five-star feast of the finest moments from “the people’s composer”. When Kaufmann hits the high B at the climax it’s as thrilling as anything produced by any of the other great tenors, and if you purchase the deluxe version with the bonus DVD you’ll see how happy he is when he nails it. But the stellar aria is only three minutes of what is a 16-track, hour-long roller coaster of emotion, all majestically delivered in that special timbre with its baritone shading. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from…

Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet in G Minor first came into the world as his second string quartet. Then he wrote what we now know as his A Major, No 2 and reworked the G Minor piece into a quintet so that he could join the Beethoven Quartet on piano when the two works were premiered. They therefore sit side by side very comfortably on disc, and they could be in no better hands than those of the Takács Quartet and Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin. This excellent Hyperion release marks the Takács’ first recorded venture into Shostakovich territory, and it is most welcome. From the quartet’s densely layered opening moments it’s obvious that the Colorado-based foursome are very much at home here. The Recitative and Romance second movement, which poured out of Shostakovich in a single day and probably with late Beethoven in mind, is perfect for Edward Dusinberre’s distinctive solo violin. The Piano Quintet, on the other hand, gives several nods to JS Bach, especially in the pivotal Fugue. Here Hamelin – a Hyperion regular with 50 albums under his belt – makes an exciting companion for arguably the… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already…