After the more serious material of the first two volumes, James Ehnes finishes his survey of Bartók’s chamber music for violin on an entertaining note. Here’s the Hungarian master in unbuttoned mood, tapping into the rich folk traditions of his native lands alongside his move to America and his flirtation with jazz. Contrasts was written for Benny Goodman and violinist Joseph Szigeti in 1938. It was one of the first pieces Bartók wrote in America. The music includes complex Bulgarian dance rhythms as well as recognising Goodman’s jazz heritage. The piece features top clarinetist, Michael Collins and pianist Andrew Armstrong. The charming Sonatina, based on Transylvanian folk themes, was originally composed for solo piano until 10 years later a student, Endre Gertler, brought Bartók a solo violin transcription. Bartók told Gertler that he’d wished he written it for fiddle in the first place.  For the Forty-Four Duos – bite-sized colourful slices of folk music from the Balkans – Ehnes is joined by Amy Schwartz Moretti. Few of these pieces last a minute, except for the lovely prelude and canon. Some tunes will be familiar in other settings but played by two duelling violins they make for a spicy and entertaining…

A formidable and finely nuanced technique with a nice dash of humour.

Scottish fiddler turns on the Gaelic charm with Mozart, Prokofiev and Elgar.

Mendelssohn’s six string quartets don’t get the airplay they deserve, being overshadowed by Beethoven and Schubert’s. There are plenty of recordings out there, but few to rival this new double disc from Berlin’s Artemis Quartet, which has established itself as a leader among the new generation of ensembles. Formed 18 years ago, they have built a strong following wherever they’ve played – including tours here with Musica Viva. Natalia Prischepenko left last year and this is our first chance to hear the Artemis with their new leader, Latvian violinist Vineta Sareika. I can tell you that this stunningly good band – Gregor Sigl, violin, Friedemann Weigle, viola, and Eckart Runge, cello – has lost nothing in the transition. Their authority and musicality are intact and they still have that chemistry that makes them so special. They’ve chosen works from three periods of Mendelssohn’s short career. The Op 13, his second quartet, was written in 1827 when he was 18 and is a memorial to Beethoven, being inspired by the great Op 135 “muss es sein? (must it be?)”. Mendelssohn’s third quartet, is the composer at his sunniest and its blue skies first movement makes the perfect opening. The final quartet is a grief-stricken…

A formidable team to tackle Schubert’s Everest of the lieder genre.

That enfant terrible of the opera stage Calixto Bieito must be mellowing in his middle age – either that or we have become numbed to the edgy Spanish director’s naughty ways. How else to explain why his take on Mussorgsky’s masterpiece Boris Godunov has less shock value than your average episode of Midsomer Murders? True he does have the Simpleton shot by a teenage girl, not to mention one of the crowd beaten to a pulp – oh and in Boris’s great death scene the pretender Dmitri strangles Xenia and suffocates the Tsarevich Fyodor.   This Bayerische Staatsoper production is set in recent times. We know this because the chorus hold up posters of Putin, Bush, Sarkozy and Berlusconi. Bieito ditches the third act but strangely this causes little collateral damage. That’s because Bieito has a trump card in 38-year-old Ukrainian bass Alexander Tsymbalyuk, who is undoubtedly on the verge of a stellar career. He has everything – good looks, dramatic nous and a gorgeous voice that has delicacy as well as power. He’s backed by a first-class cast including Anatoli Kotscherga as Pimen and Vladimir Matorin who makes a good Varlaam, looking uncannily like the famous portrait of the…

The latest batch of re-releases from Eloquence includes two Deutsche Grammophon double sets from the 1950s and 60s and some of Mozart’s dance music from the Decca archives. The Rita Streich double set showcases the Russian-born soprano’s versatility by combining her 1950s Waltzes and Arias recordings (some of the tracks in mono), with her Folk Songs and Lullabies collection recorded in 1962 when the doyenne of the Vienna State Opera was still at the height of her powers. Much of the material is lighter fare – Johann rather than Richard Strauss – but we also get a sense of her expressive power in Dvorˇák’s Song to the Moon from Rusalka and her consummate control and technique in Saint-Saëns’ wordless The Nightingale and The Rose, with its seemingly endless trill. The spiritual Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen shows off her rich and mellow chest voice.   While we’re all excited by Jonas Kaufmann’s stellar versatility in both Italian and German roles, there was another tenor who was equally at home with Verdi and Wagner but whose voice is seldom heard these days. Hungarian Sándor Kónya trained in Germany and Italy where he developed the thrilling open voiced high notes which…

Casper David Friedrich’s painting The Wanderer Above The Sea Of Mist has been trotted out for countless album covers, but for Austrian baritone Florian Boesch’s latest collaboration with Roger Vignoles it couldn’t be more appropriate. From the English pianist’s gloomy opening chords we almost feel the fog that enshrouds the mountains and valleys surveyed by the figure on his lonely crag. Boesch’s gentle, expressive baritone paints in the hopeless despair of a man who wanders “silent and joyless, and my sighs forever ask: Where?” That’s the Wanderer of D489, but this collection of 19 songs is not all Weltschmerz, although Boesch does resignation very well with his lovely sotto voce. In Aus Heliopolis II we hear a more assertive narrator and Auf der Bruck has singer and piano cantering along.  Schubert is a competitive market at the moment. So why buy this one? Well, Boesch is a compelling singer. He already has Winterreise and Die Schöne Müllerin under his belt with accompanist Malcolm Martineau (who has recorded the same repertoire with Bryn Terfel), but he and pianist Vignoles have a great chemistry. This complements their previous outing of songs by the lesser-known Carl Loewe. Boesch’s lines are poetic and beautifully…

Cementing his place as one of the most exciting violinists of his day, Laurent Korcia has delved into the tradition of the great virtuosi for his latest release. The 50-year-old Frenchman takes on Paganini, Kreisler and Ysäye and he comes out well ahead of rivals on points. The opener is Fritz Kreisler’s transcription of the first movement of Paganini’s Violin Concerto No 1. Even the excellent Chamber Orchestra of Paris can’t disguise the weaknesses in Kreisler’s orchestration which descends into schmaltziness and shows little evidence of his studies with Bruckner. The violin part, however, is pure Paganini and gives Korcia no difficulties. He is in similar sparkling form with Eugene Ysäye’s gemlike variations on the famous 24th Caprice accompanied by Haruko Ueda on piano. There’s more Kreisler – his transcription of Albéniz’s Malaguena, La Gitana and the impressionistic Petite Valse for Solo Piano, featuring Ueda again – before Paganini’s own variations on Di Tanti Palpiti from Rossini’s Tancredi brings this charming disc to a stirring close. Articulation, intonation and bowing are faultless; pyrotechnics handled with aplomb and taste – he knows better than to be flashy and vulgar. His ‘Zahn’ Stradivarius sounds stunning thanks to the Naïve production team who…

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Ax’s first of three thrills Sydney, combining power and attack with exquisite delicacy and pinpoint articulation.

Across the whole collection we hear Te Kanawa’s sweet and creamy tone and her famed ability to bring her characters to life