Hoang Pham is a young pianist of Vietnamese background who studied in Australia and subsequently the US. He now has an international career, appearing frequently in America and Europe. In 2013 he gave a series of recitals in Melbourne, one of which is preserved in this live recording.  Pham’s program is formidable: Beethoven’s Pathétique, Scriabin’s Poème and Sonata No 9 (Black Mass), Bach’s Partita No 2 and, last but not least, Liszt’s Petrarch Sonnet and Dante Sonata from the Second Year of Pilgrimage (Italy).  At first I thought one of the less often played Beethoven sonatas would have been a smarter choice, however, this is a fresh and first-rate performance of the Pathétique. The drama of the first movement is well paced, the cantabile of the second movement affecting, and the finale exhilarating. The contrasting works by Scriabin are possibly the highlight of the recital. Pham presents the composer’s rigorous, highly chromatic late Sonata with great clarity of line.  He is clearly a pianist who relishes the Romantic tradition, once again emphasising the lyrical side of Liszt’s Petrarch Sonnet (a piano transcription of an earlier song) and plunging fearlessly into the pianistic rhetoric of the Dante Sonata. If this piece…

When late in life, Saint-Saëns heard music by York Bowen he commented that “He is the most remarkable of the young British composers.” Bowen’s flower blossomed between the wars, but timing is everything and as a ‘Romantic’ composer he fell victim (along with many others) to changes in taste and a musical revolution that marginalised a generation of composers worldwide. Bowen is only now re-emerging and to judge by the fine music on this CD, not before time.  The disc opens with his Clarinet Sonata. The languorous theme rolls out elegantly, the scherzo is cheeky and the final movement allows the clarinet to range widely against Benjamin Frith’s energetic pianism. Robert Plane’s creamy clarinet tone is perfect.  The impressive Rhapsody Trio begins mysteriously and moves beautifully into a conversation between instruments. Describing music can be the very devil, so if I add the phrase ‘intelligent romanticism,’ I hope you will understand. The unfinished Piano Trio from 1900 is splendid, with a strong melody in the final section.  The Phantasy Quintet, in seven sections, is written for string quartet and bass clarinet, giving the music a haunting quality as well as a distinguishing texture. However, by the time I got to…

Adrian Chandler has always been a wiz when it comes to programming which satisfies both musically and historically. As his ensemble’s name suggests (La Serenissima is another name for the Republic of Venice), the Mersyside-born violinist takes Vivaldi’s music as a focal point, exploring his concertos and sonatas in relation to those of contemporaneous composers.  The present release demonstrates how Vivaldi’s style changed under Neapolitan influence. Of the three violin concertos, Chandler suggests one was “probably intended for theatrical purposes”; the other two likewise show less reliance on Vivaldi’s trademark ritornello structure and a greater preoccupation with bel canto. In between the concertos are arias from three Vivaldi operas.  Performances are beyond compare. If Sally Bruce-Payne’s vocal contributions display a grasp of the relationship between surface virtuosity and profound theatricality, the same could be said of Chandler’s. An intelligent, dramatic use of colour, dynamics, articulation, bowing and extempore embellishment has always been a feature of his style, and one finds it here in abundance, not only in his own playing but in that of La Serenissima. If Italian ensembles such as Il Giardino Armonico once led the way in reclaiming their baroque heritage, English bands like La Serenissima are mounting…

In his native China, Yundi is as close to a pop star as a classical musician can get, with millions of Twitter followers, screaming fans, and sold-out tours. On hearing this fresh and sometimes even inspired performance of the venerable old Emperor Concerto, it’s easy to understand the fuss. Of course having Daniel Harding conduct the Berlin Philharmonic is a huge bonus, his tempi generally quick but never sounding rushed, and with the whole thing having a sense of excitement. But from the moment Yundi himself enters with that famous theme, it’s clear that this is a young soloist who really has the goods, oddly enough, without affectation or mannerism – just lovely clear, musical insight and a singing, legato line. And then there’s the slow movement, which really is so rapt in mood and played with such poetic lyricism that you not only start falling in love with it all over again but even consider comparing Yundi’s spell-binding performance with that of the greats. The coupling, though, is rather unusual, Schumann’s solo-piano Fantasie in C Major, presumably there for a good reason but it’s one that’s not immediately apparent. Good enough in itself, Schumann’s three-movement classic, which originated in…

I realised on listening to this album that I’d never actually sat down and listened to an album of lounge jazz. I’d heard such music of course – at clubs and as background noise to particularly euro-centric coffee shops – but never owned, or felt the desire to own, an album from the genre of lounge jazz. After the first few tracks of Far Away Places I immediately realised why. Far Away Places is the latest in Janet Seidel’s long discography, spanning over eighteen releases so far. The album pulls together a wide collection of songs form all across the world, including Cuba (La Paloma), Japan (Suzukake no Michi), and America (Take The A Train). Every track on this album is realised in a similar stripped down, soulful iteration. Seidel is surrounded by a host of talented musicians here. Aside from the trio regulars Chuck Morgan and David Seidel, Fabian Hevla and Hamish Stuart both contribute some solid percussion work across half the tracks. Solid is really the only apt descriptor here. There isn’t anything wrong with the music, the performances are earnest and nuanced, but at the same time it doesn’t really give you anything to pay attention to…

The 1600 marriage of Maria de’ Medici to Henri IV of France was more than just a Renaissance knees-up. For two composers, Jacopo Peri and Giulio Caccini, it was the opportunity for each to claim to have produced the first example of what came to be known as ‘opera’. On the day, the performance was 90% Peri. Caccini went on to compose an entirely different version (and to subject his colleague to polemical broadsides over the ensuing decades). It’s his version recorded here. L’Euridice relies to a greater extent on recitative than later works by Monteverdi and Cavalli, with fewer ritornelli and choruses to liven things up. A comparison with Peri reveals Caccini to be a tauter dramatist, no bad thing given the tendency towards verbosity at the expense of action. Alessandri’s version, here captured in a live recording from the Innsbruck Festival, also has the advantage of a more imaginative instrumental realisation with three twangling theorbos, a host of keyboard instruments and a beautifully rich double lyre. He also has the benefit of supremely creative singers: Silvia Frigato as a fetching Euridice, Furio Zanasi as a moving Orfeo, Sara Mingardo poignantly announcing the fatal snake-bite and Antonio Abate as…

The voice and artistry of Iestyn Davies has always been one of the treats I look forward to when another recording by the King’s Consort comes my way. Here, in a well-deserved accolade we have a disc where we can savour his music making at length – and it does not disappoint. Apart from being a conspectus of Handel’s astonishing dramatic range and technical prowess in the realm of the oratorio, it is also a treasure trove of delights for the alto voice.  Whether in the sober piety of O sacred oracles of truth from Belshazzar or the more bellicose Mighty love now calls to arm from Alexander Balus, Davies is totally in command of his material, spinning out beautifully formed musical phrases and displaying his deep love of the English language at every turn. This very well chosen program shows his honeyed tones in a variety of contrasted contexts. Amongst some of the highlights are the uplifting How can I stay when love invites from Esther, and the tender Mortals think that Time is sleeping from The Triumph of Time and Truth. A few well-chosen duets with Carolyn Sampson add to the pleasure. As much as this disc is…

Five of the world’s top wind players have formed chamber music’s equivalent of The Three Tenors to record an absolute pearler of a double album. Going under the name Les Vents Français, flautist Emmanuel Pahud, Paul Meyer, clarinet, Francois Leleux oboe, Gilbert Audin, bassoon, and Radovan Vlatkovic, french horn, are all star soloists in their own right. Together they are magic. The set kicks off with a light and air-filled soufflé in the form of Jacques Ibert’s Trois pièces brèves. This is highly accessible music composed during the inter-war years as an antidote to the heavier fare of modernism. Much of Ravel’s piano music transcribes beautifully for chamber ensembles and American horn player Mason Jones’ arrangement of Le Tombeau de Couperin shows off the group’s matchless balance and flawless intonation. Andre Jolivet (1905-1974) was greatly influenced by both Varèse and Bartók and his 1963 Sonatine for oboe and bassoon slides playfully between keys like a witty conversation between these two instruments. This leads seamlessly into Darius Milhaud’s nod to the 15th century troubadour era, La Cheminée du Roi René, seven exquisite sketches with acrobatic flute and oboe lines depicting jugglers and jousting knights and a serene madrigal/nocturne suggesting a chivalrous…

Having previously recorded Beethoven’s complete violin sonatas with Corey Cerovsek, as well as some fairly uncompromising 20th-century works, including pieces by Boulez, Bartók and Rautavaara, Paavali Jumpanen has released a two-disc set of Beethoven’s piano sonatas. He’s chosen some of the very earliest works in the Op 2 set, as well as the Sonata in A Major, Op 101, and he concludes with the monumental Hammerklavier. Jumpanen’s approach to these pieces is highly convincing; in the early sonatas, he reminds us that they were dedicated to Haydn through a thoroughly Classical reading of the works. However, there’s an intensity behind the elegance that’s refreshing. It’s clear that Jumppanen realises that Beethoven was already pushing the boundaries of the Classical style, showing a firm understanding of the works’ progressive nature. The Sonata in F Minor begins with an arpeggiated melody highly reminiscent of Haydn himself, but it’s only a short time before the storm clouds gather. Take for example, the passionate last movement, which is full of gestures that signify what was to come for Beethoven’s stylistic development – we hear crashing bass chords paired with rapid-fire scalic passages. The Sonata in A is a more restrained work, and it’s worthwhile…

The main strike against this CD is that it lasts barely 45 minutes. A pity, as the performances are very fine.

Daniel Barenboim first recorded the Elgar symphonies back in the 1970s and of course also made ‘the other’ Cello Concerto recording with his wife Jacqueline du Pré. Now he’s returning to them all, the latter with Alisa Weilerstein last year. He’s redoing the symphonies with the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Second this year with the First to follow in 2015. And this Symphony No 2 sounds like urgent business for Barenboim. Forget Sir John Barbirolli weeping in the slow movement, or Sir Adrian Boult with his stiff upper lip and two-metre baton revealing Elgarian profundity. Barenboim’s all bustle-and-busyness at the start, not so much nobilmente as ‘no time to stop, got errands to do’. This is a turbulent Elgar, changing his mind every ten seconds, and with his rhythms and phrases all sounding rather four-square at the outset (and perhaps a little too Elgar-as-Brahms). Then when Elgar says “presto”, Barenboim really puts the foot down, making the third movement a veritable showpiece of technical virtuosity on the orchestra’s part, perhaps at the expense of the unusual but altogether distinctive Elgarian characteristic of nostalgia infusing the quick bits. But eventually it all begins to make sense. He may be an old Elgarian…

For some time, enterprising groups have been recording the Sullivan operas which he didn’t write with Gilbert, a welcome development, especially when as well performed and recorded as is this splendid offering from Wales. Most contain a good measure of attractive music and are important additions to the catalogue. The Beauty Stone arrived at the Savoy in 1898, two years after the last G&S opera, The Grand Duke and ran for a mere 50 performances. The Savoy audience had tired of the genre and were being entertained by hits such as Floradora and The Geisha. On top of that, the librettist, Comyns Carr and the brilliant playwright Arthur Wing Pinero, overwrote the piece into the ground. Unlike Sullivan, who knew a thing or two about these things, they thought it was play with music, and it ran four hours at its premiere. Now, with a good recording and first-rate cast we can largely ignore the clumsier aspects of the drama and content ourselves with Sullivan’s fine score, and it is excellent. With his grand opera, Ivanhoe in 1891 Sullivan was endeavouring to find a way from Wagner to a newer romantic English school with strong medieval elements. He continued this…