Critically acclaimed Scottish pianist Steven Osborne’s latest recording finds him tackling one of the great monsters of the classical piano repertoire – Beethoven’s Op. 106 Piano Sonata, the Hammerklavier. Brutal, experimental and relentlessly modern, the Hammerklavier hurtled relentlessly forth into new harmonic territory via a revolutionary four-movement structure. Osborne takes the first two of these at a terrifying clip before sinking into the devastating emotionality of the Adagio Sostenuto, throughout which his extraordinary technical clarity is maintained: the upper register notes drip like acid rain, burning where they land. It’s often said that Osborne’s playing reveals hitherto unheard nuances, and this is certainly true of the final, smashing fugal movement, which is compelling and repays repeated listening. The Hammerklavier is accompanied by the two sonatas preceding it chronologically – Op. 90 and 101. As renowned Beethoven scholar Professor Barry Cooper points out in his superb liner notes, these “three sonatas represent an enormous crescendo in terms of length and difficulty”. Osborne’s tone is bright and crisp, but never harsh or brittle, and the recording is in accord with Hyperion’s usual high standards of fidelity. Osborne has released over 20 albums since signing with Hyperion in 1998; many have met with…

A fine souvenir for those who attended, and an enjoyable recital for all music lovers.

Brazilian pianist Fabio Martino studied and now lives in Germany. His second solo recital disc concentrates on the big guns of the Romantic repertoire: Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No 23 (Appassionata); Liszt’s three Liebesträume, and Schumann’s Fantasy in C, Op. 17. Martino’s Appassionata is clearly conceived as a whole. He saves the surging drama for the final movement, notably the closing Presto, and deliberately understates the work’s opening movement, which proceeds prettily with no overt suggestions of significance. The work unfolds naturally: an approach I like in Beethoven. The Liszt pieces are sympathetically done, with poise and a feeling for rubato that gives them an improvisational feel. Martino seems especially in touch with the sound world of Schumann. In the rhapsodic Fantasie of 1835 he sweeps through the Sturm und Drang with passion, and is suitably restrained in the final movement. Here’s a young artist whose superlative technique is placed completely at the service of the composer. Who is Zequinha de Abreu? He wrote the song Tico Tico, made famous by an older Brazilian bombshell, Carmen Miranda. Marc-André Hamelin’s challenging arrangement provides the quirky (and, to be honest, not entirely appropriate) encore to this recital. Martino tosses it off with controlled…

The six volumes making up Bartók’s Mikrokosmos series are often appreciated mainly for their pedagogical intent. But dynamic French pianist Cédric Tiberghien is out to demonstrate just how expressive and individual these short etudes can be, and that they may offer insights into Bartók’s compositional practice.   With this disc, Tiberghien investigates the fifth book in the series. It contains miniatures devoted specifically to technique, such as ‘chords together and in opposition’, ‘alternating thirds’, and ‘syncopation’. But there are numerous other works, which spotlight Bartók’s transformation and adaption of Eastern European folk material. There are also plenty of simply gorgeous musical moments, as in the fourth miniature, Boating, which undulates with dreamy modal harmonies.   Also on the programme are the Romanian Folk Dances, which are some of Bartók’s most well-known compositions, particularly in their incarnations for violin and piano, and for orchestra. The piano arrangements permit plenty of flexibility in interpretation, and Tiberghien’s readings are full of fun and energy, with a refreshingly free approach to tempo. The Bagatelles are fascinating. Composed in 1908, they demonstrate a composer (not yet 30) with an innovative harmonic imagination, looking to bend the rules inherited from the Romantic period. Tiberghien negotiates the…

This album is a little charmer from one of Australia’s finest chamber groups, the Omega Ensemble. Led by David Rowden, it starts with a lovely, nuanced performance of Mozart’s gorgeous Clarinet Quintet. Rowden uses a basset clarinet, the instrument with the extra low notes developed by Anton Stadler, for whom the work was composed. Those woody bass notes that so fascinated Mozart are on display from the outset, enhanced by the ABC’s closely placed microphones. The string quartet, led by Catalin Ungureanu, are fine equal partners in the “conversation” with the soloist and listen out for second violinist Airena Nakamura’s dialogue with Rowden in the beautiful Larghetto. Ian Munro’s three-part quintet Songs from the Bush mixes folk tunes with contemporary themes. For the outer movements, Country Dance and Drover’s Lament,  Munro raids his well-thumbed copy of John Meredith’s Folk Songs of Australia for snippets while the spacious middle section evokes a camp fire under the great Australian night sky. The final work is a corker: It Takes Two – Concerto for Two Clarinets by George Palmer, for which Rowden is joined by Dimitri Ashkenazy. Commissioned in 2008, the former Supreme Court Judge came up with a delightful tribute… Continue reading…

Named for an Aboriginal word meaning pipe or flute, Ulpirra Sonatines places Ross Edwards and Mark Isaacs – who joins flautist Melissa Doecke on this disc – alongside Poulenc and Dutilleux. The disc opens with the lush first movement of Isaacs’ Sonatine, Doecke soaring over Isaacs’ undulating piano. The recording catches the complex edge of Doecke’s sound as she produces ethereal harmonics and earthy flutter-tonguing. Isaacs’ The River for alto flute and piano revels in the velvet sound of the lower instrument, while providing plenty of opportunity for Doecke to sweep up through the range with a light, flitting agility. The colour and virtuosity of Edwards’ Nura has no doubt contributed to its popularity in the flute repertoire. Wild Bird Morning channels Messiaen while Ocean Idyll is eerily tranquil. In this performance the normally fiery Earth Dance is given a carefully paced, detailed treatment. Doecke’s clean sound winds meditatively above gently flowing water in Edwards’ Water Spirit Song, originally a work for cello, while Ulpirra dances playfully. After this, it is jolting to be thrust into 20th-century neo-classicism with Poulenc’s oft-performed Sonata. Doecke’s tone is honeyed, however, as she… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe…

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…

In one form or other, most of us are familiar with the music of Percy Grainger; arguably the most internationally successful of all Australian composers – at least until the advent of Peter Sculthorpe. Grainger was also a dazzling pianist and could make one piano sound like four, so the extra layers of counterpoint and detail, all sparkling and optimistic, sound even more spectacular in these editions. Apart from attractive pot-boilers such as Handel in the Strand, Country Gardens and Molly on the Shore, the four discs offer us the opportunity to hear music that we are unfamiliar with. New to me are the Wrath of Odin and The Rival Brothers, and some pieces work best in their orchestral and vocal form, such as The Lonely Desert Man. The Brisk Young Sailor has all the Grainger hallmarks that made him such an entertaining composer: cross rhythms, syncopations and a bright engaging tune. English Waltz is also a marvellous piece and goes with an engaging swing. Not all are short trifles. Hill Song No 1 is over 16 minutes long, and wanders its convoluted way across the keyboard as if the composer was searching for something. The three pianists play the…

If the violin is the tempestuous, attention-hogging soprano of the string world, the viola is the mezzo – gently melancholic, often found lurking in the shadows just beyond the violin’s spotlight. With this album, Lawrence Power asks a question: what would happen if the viola took centre-stage, stepping forward not just for high-minded sonatas and concertos but for precisely the kind of bravura concert pieces so beloved by violinists?   The answer may not offer the most satisfying recital programme, but it does shed light on some little-known and still-less-often performed repertoire, giving the character-actor of the string family a bold new starring role in the process. Glance down the repertoire list for Fin de Siècle and you get a thrillingly wide-angle view on a period of French music too often distilled down to just Debussy and Ravel, with maybe a smattering of Chausson if you’re lucky. Henri Büsser, Georges Hüe, Léon Honnoré, Lucien Durosoir – the names are as fragrant as their music, whether it’s Büsser’s episodic Appassionato – an ear-seizing opener that packs both high-wire angst and reflective ennui into its barely five-minute span – Hüe’s moody sonata-in-miniature Thème Varié, with its wistful theme and highly characterised sequence…

Richard Strauss’s Elektra premiered in 1909, representing the cutting edge of modernist expressionism. Two years later, Der Rosenkavalier proved an even bigger triumph. Also to a libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, this opera was crammed with tuneful waltzes in imitation of the ‘other Strauss’. Musically it seemed like a backward step, but Strauss had never aimed to be progressive. A true man of the theatre, he simply treated Hofmannsthal’s subject matter as the drama demanded. Hearing both works today, it is clear they have much in common: soaring soprano lines, restless chromatic harmonies and extremely lush orchestration.   Strauss prepared two “Waltz Sequences” from Der Rosenkavalier for concert use. A longer suite was arranged by the conductor Artur Rodzinski. It was reworked later by Josef Krips, who restored the concluding music of the opera in place of Rodzinski’s inflated ending. (The Rodzinski version is performed here, but I prefer the Krips.) The suite from Elektra is new: “conceptualised” by Manfred Honeck and realised by Tomáš Ille. In both cases I miss the vocal component, especially in the Presentation of the Rose and the great final trio of Rosenkavalier. In the melodramatic Elektra, all of Strauss’s orchestral wizardry is expended on…

CPE Bach performances that blow everything else away.

Australian composer Alfred Hill clearly liked to borrow music from himself, as his Piano Concerto in A features here on this Hyperion release alongside its source material – his Piano Sonata in A. Johannes Fritzsch leads Piers Lane and the Adelaide Symphony through this glowing, romantic score.   The concerto is being recorded 75 years after its Australian premiere. Lane’s performance is touching; patient with his melody, he seems to treasure each note with understanding and tenderness. The third movement Nocturne – (Homage to Chopin) – is filled with yearning, swells in the strings given added presence by gentle timpani. The album is well mixed, enabling us to hear and feel the communication between each part. Its finale is tasteful and radiant. Between the two Hill works sits George Boyle’s Piano Concerto in D Minor – perhaps the earliest work composed in this form in Australia. Coincidentally, its premiere was conducted by Hill in 1913. The work is theatrical and classy, taking us back to an era long past. After its hearty conclusion, Hill’s Piano Sonata then brings things down a notch. With all other instruments gone, it seems… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe…