This box set truly is a must have set for all 20th-century music fans.

In my youth, a popular party piece was to haul out a recording made by New York socialite Florence Foster Jenkins and all fall about laughing as we listened to her murder The Queen of the Night. It was so innocently bad. It took great skill, imagination and sympathy to bring her story to the screen, for where is the modern audience for a truly bad opera singer from the 1940s?  Enter director Stephen Frears. He has produced a remarkable film, drawing on the brilliance of Meryl Streep as Jenkins, Hugh Grant as her husband (one of his best performances) and a wry, comic turn from Simon Helberg (of Big Bang fame) as Madam’s hapless pianist. The film is beautifully written and produced, an absolute delight. Frears makes it convincing, including showing how Jenkin’s devoted husband shielded her from the truth of her foolishness.  Meryl Streep sings all the Jenkins extracts, and it is a tribute to her taste and skill that she doesn’t make it sound like a poor take-off as she reproduces Jenkins’ famously bad singing. It’s a star turn, especially as it takes great skill to sing badly, convincingly. Alexandre Desplat provides a small amount of original…

Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999) was the most widely known violinist of the 20th century. A child prodigy, he recorded the Elgar Concerto at the age of 16 with Elgar conducting. His recording career spanned seven decades. The earliest discs were made for American Columbia in 1928, but from 1929 until 1998 he recorded for EMI. It is from his EMI catalogue that these 80 CDs are drawn (they are available separately, or in one box with a set of DVDs). Amazingly, these are not Menuhin’s complete recordings: his late conducting work and some duplications (such as Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnol) are missing. The landmark recordings are here: the 1932 Elgar; the complete Beethoven Sonatas with the distinguished pianist Louis Kentner; Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn and Bartók concertos under Furtwängler, and earlier sessions with his mentor, the Romanian composer Georges Enescu. The young Yehudi’s sheer panache and extraordinary musical instincts are a revelation: hear him delighting in his skill in the Virtuoso collection, in pieces by Sarasate and Fritz Kreisler recorded in the late ‘30s. In mid-career, Menuhin’s technique faltered; problems with his bowing arm plagued him from then on. You can hear it in his live performance of the Britten… Continue reading Get…

Baptised for the castle in Scotland’s capital, the Dunedin Consort’s reputation for Bach persists on this disc of concertos with Cecilia Bernardini, their regular leader, stepping up to the plate. The Concerto for Violin and Oboe in C Minor is famous for sustained lyricism in the second movement. Bernadini clutches mischievously at the apex of phrases in this and the Violin Concerto in E, interacting energetically with her collaborators, in this case oboist (and dad) Alfredo Bernardini. The older Bernadini offers a galaxy of dynamic detail in just the first note of the languid Sinfonia that opens the cantata Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis. The glittering finale of the Violin Concerto in A Minor is one of Bach’s most cheerful movements in a minor key. Bernardini weaves in and out of accompanying layers to sublime effect. This work (and the programme in general) exudes more the impression of chamber music than of soloistic fireworks.For the Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor Bernadini is joined by Huw Daniel. The two violins dart in and out of the aural foreground and beautifully-judged swells on long notes is evenly-matched in intensity between the two soloists. The Grammy-nominated Dunedin Consort under founder and Bach specialist John Butt…

With some recordings, there is a risk of fatigue – a collection of works by the same composer, or for the same instrumentation, too similar in taste and sound. This is not the case with the latest release from the effervescent Fantasticus XL. This is not a vanilla performance by any means as this singular ensemble attacks a selection of baroque concerti with contagious energy. Johann Gottlieb Graun’s Viola da Gamba Concerto in C opens, and it sets an impressive benchmark. Soloist Robert Smith’s performance possesses the flexibility of a complex Pinot – in a matter of moments, his rich, layered tone will give way to an athletic tenor in the highest register. It’s an exposing piece, and Smith pushes and pulls the tempo to frequently unexpected delight. Jean-Marie Leclair’s Violin Concerto in G Minor is next, and Baroque violinist Rie Kimura maintains the sweetest of monologues while the ensemble brings the rumble to the sound, creating shade, by leaning in to moments of harmonic uncertainty. A Harpsichord Concerto in F by WF Bach completes the set. As a vehicle for Guillermo Brachetta’s virtuosity, it ticks all the right boxes as he flies through the quicksilver technical passages (especially in…

Reuben Blundell is an Australian-born conductor, whose mother played French horn in the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. As a violinist, Blundell gained a place in the New World Symphony in Florida (under Tilson Thomas). He is now Music Director of several ensembles in New York and Philadelphia. One of these is the Gowns Arts Ensemble, a string orchestra, comprising ten musicians on this recording. The programme consists of a dozen short pieces for strings by American or American-based composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This was a time when Americans wrote in the European style, even if indigenous themes were used, as in the Omaha Indian Love Song and Chippewa Lullaby from Four North American Legends by Carl Busch (1914).  It is interesting to hear music by Horatio Parker, who was the composition teacher of Charles Ives – arguably the first true American original – as well as Roger Sessions and Quincy Porter. Parker’s Scherzo for Strings is a brisk minor-key waltz, reminiscent of the work of one of his own teachers, Dvorˇák. Other composers include Arthur Foote (Air and Gavotte), Frederick Converse (Serenade), and Paul Miersch, a German cellist who played in both the New York Symphony…

Is there anything new that yet another recording of The Four Seasons can say? Probably not, and it’s certainly not said here. Nevertheless, this is a very fine (if traditional) recording by Canadian violin virtuoso James Ehnes. The Four Seasons formed part of a set of violin concertos composed for the occupants of a girls orphanage in Venice. Published in 1725, it is endlessly dazzling, virtuosic and irresistible, a toe-tapping set of pop songs. This recording makes no claims to historically informed performance or period arrangements (although mention must be made of Ehnes’ 1715 ex-Marsick Stradivarius); rather, The Four Seasons gets the full orchestral treatment, an ocean of shimmering violins working to magical effect, their upper-register interplay with Ehnes in Spring particularly transcendent. Two other violin showstoppers are featured here: Fritz Kreisler’s arrangement of Tartini’s Devil’s Trill Sonata, and Jean-Marie Leclair’s understated (in this company) Violin Sonata in D Major, Op. 9 No 3, Tambourin. Both are performed with American pianist Andrew Armstrong, renowned for his dazzling technique and expression; on this evidence also an astute and sensitive chamber player (he and Ehnes have recorded two critically acclaimed Bartók collections). The recording is rich, resonant and present, and this is…

Jennifer Higdon is one of the most performed composers in the US, and Cold Mountain is the Pulitzer Prize-winner’s first operatic sojourn. The composition got off to a rocky start when the original commission from San Francisco Opera failed to eventuate. Happily, Santa Fe Opera, Opera Philadelphia and Minnesota Opera rescued the commission of this brilliant new work, with the premiere staged last year in 2015 in Santa Fe. After sell-out performances, the work has since won the 2016 International Opera Award for best world premiere. The libretto by Gene Scheer is adapted from the best-selling novel of the same name by Charles Frazier, which tells the story of Civil War deserter W.P. Inman and his journey to find his beloved Ada, a once well-off but now desperate woman who learns to fend for herself with the help of Ruby, a mountain woman. The setting for the story had a special significance for Higdon, who grew up on a farm in East Tennessee, only 60 miles from the real Cold Mountain in North Carolina. Musically, Higdon’s score is fresh and cast in her own personal brand of Neo-Romanticism, while drawing on numerous hallmarks of classical and folk Americana. Throughout the…

It’s nightfall when I hit play on the Streeton Trio’s latest release, which features two minor piano trios from Mendelssohn. His first in D Minor, Op. 49 is a fitting opener for the rainy Hobart evening. Though hinting at brighter spirits, the dominant feeling is intense. The Trio’s members are inspiringly considerate of each other through radical dynamic ranges, making room for each part with what seems exaggerated courtesy. The following Andante con Molto Tranquillo offers a necessary respite; though gentle, it doesn’t fully release us from the tension. The Scherzo: Leggiero e vivace is highly repetitive in rhythm, but exploding with expression. Even through speedier passages, the ensemble boasts a unified voice – at once revealing conviction and grace. An arrangement of Gondellied, WoO 10 from the trio’s pianist Benjamin Kopp comes next. It’s excessively romantic, depicting the canals of Venice as Mendelssohn may have remembered them. Its expansion from 2/4 to 12/8 may be the cause of such dreaminess – an adventurous decision from Kopp. His arrangement of Spring Song, Op. 62/6 is comically quaint, while the Song Without Words in E Flat, Op. 30/1 uses lyrical lines to showcase cellist Umberto Clerici and violinist Emma Jardine’s skills….

Except for his Debussyesque Escales (Ports of Call), I’ve long regarded Jacques Ibert (known as “Jackie Bear” in Britain) as a sort of fellow traveller (along with Jean Françaix), with Les Six. He’s more talented than five of them, but without Poulenc’s genius for laconic glitter and Parisian chic. This well-filled CD (over 80 minutes – why can’t everyone be that generous?) gives a more rounded survey of Ibert’s oeuvre. The Divertissement (1930), which cemented Ibert’s reputation as a musical farceur, was adapted from a play called The Italian Straw Hat and is perhaps more sardonic than the usual Satieesque Keystone Cops-style slapstick romp, and none the worse for that. Escales (inspired by Ibert’s experiences during naval service in the First World War) is well played and, here, I must single out the lovely, sinuous oboe playing in the Tunis-Nefta movement – so different from the pinched, vinegary sound we used to hear from this orchestra in the Ansermet days. The reading is somewhat ‘northern’ and matter of fact rather than radiating Mediterranean languor, as in Charles Munch’s or Stokowski’s legendary readings.  The main discovery here is the Symphonic Suite, relocated to Paris from a play originally set in South…

Schumann’s Piano Concerto is a Romantic warhorse (albeit a very charming one) but Dvořák’s is largely unknown, despite being championed by Firkušný and Richter (accompanied by Kleiber) who restored the original version. Will advocacy by a pianist of Hough’s eminence convince people it’s a neglected masterpiece? Don’t expect any sublime ascents into the sunlit uplands or exhilarating ‘travelling tune’ allegros in the symphonies. Much of the Concerto falls between two stools: Hough has written about the “fiendish difficulty” of the solo part, although you’d never think so from his blend of heroic power, insight and finesse. There’s little overt bravura or man versus piano writing. The slow movement has moments of blissful repose but it’s only in the Finale that we recognise Dvořák’s hallmark earthy energy. It’s not first-rate Dvořák, but it’s interesting and worth the price of the CD. The Schumann is an almost complete contrast: highly pianistic writing and a lyrical meshing between soloist and orchestra. There are many felicities in Hough’s reading, from the first movement’s ruminative passages (where I greatly prefer Hough to the more youthful impetuosity of the recently released Lisiecki) to the poetic whispered exchanges in the Intermezzo (which are never simply coy), and…

Erland von Koch (1910-2009) had a long and distinguished career embracing various ‘styles’. This sample of his ‘serious orchestral style’ certainly whets the appetite. The two symphonies, receiving world premiere recordings, date from 1948 and 1952 and are superbly crafted without an ounce of flab. The style might be described as Hindemith-lite with a touch of Bartók, but the melodic invention is fresh and memorable. Koch’s formal structure and thematic development is organic and lucid with a satisfying inevitability yet never predictable; a divertingly novel path to a foregone conclusion. The orchestration is clear and transparent but with just enough weight to satisfy the senses and never resorts to gimmickry. The melodic lines are coloured by subtle instrumental doublings and mixtures (marvellous wind writing) and the arguments are cogent, logical and always moving forward with striding confidence. Movements avoid outstaying their welcome such is his concentration and economy of means. Impulsi, a thrilling orchestral showpiece with nervous triplet repetitions would make a marvellous concert opener while the Nordic Capriccio is an amiable, folk-tinged romp. The performances are impeccable with a sense of commitment and relish.  Sound is as transparent and natural as one expects from the label. Marvellous stuff.