British violinist Tasmin Little has been playing Vaughan Williams’ evocation of a lark in flight for most of her career – she and Sir Andrew Davis recorded it 20 years ago for Teldec – but this new recording on Chandos is something else altogether. It’s not just that Little’s tone is nigh on ideal, capable of an extraordinary ethereal sweetness, but her sense of phrasing makes the whole work into one long melody, seemingly untroubled by bar lines. Davis and Chandos support this flight with a gorgeous cushion of string sound, surpassing any other audio account that can recall. If that sounds like a rave for a new recording of The Lark, it should, but this disc, named for Vaughan Williams’ hit, is a cunning façade for a recording of one of the finest of British violin concertos – that of E J Moeran. It’s criminal that there are only four other versions of this appealing masterpiece in the catalogue – Sammons and Campoli (both with Boult and both in poor sound), Georgiadis on Lyrita and Lydia Mordkovitch’s fine account with Handley, also on Chandos. Little sweeps all before her with the most sensitive and nuanced account to date. Where she stands out… Continue reading…

What an inspired idea! To capture the Zeitgeist of a troubled decade through the medium of a musical genre: in this case, the violin concerto. Gil Shaham explores violin concertos of the 1930s in Volume 1 of a series which contains works by Barber, Stravinsky, Britten, Berg and Karl Amadeus Hartmann, by far the least known of the group. A confirmed socialist, Hartmann was one of the few genuinely anti-Nazi figures in German music throughout the Third Reich and refused to allow his music to be performed there. I’d always considered what little music I’d heard of Hartmann (1905-1963) very difficult, however, this is a real discovery and Gil Shaham makes his Concerto Funèbre into a highly moving threnody, meditation and evocation of the horrors of war, using sources as disparate as a Hussite (Czech protestant) hymn and a Russian revolutionary song bookending an adagio and a Bartókian scherzo which lashes out in anger. Shaham’s tone and intonation throughout this tour de force are impeccable. Stravinsky and Alban Berg reacted to what they considered the excessive emotions of late Romanticism in contrasting ways: Stravinsky adopted neo-Classicism with baroque forms and his Violin Concerto, with its concision, ironic wit and dancing quality is a…

If you are not all Wagnered out by the blitzkrieg of bicentennial CDs, DVDs and live performances, you might find room on your shelf for one more addition featuring British baritone James Rutherford. He has already sung Sachs (at Bayreuth no less), the Dutchman, Wolfram, Kurwenal and Wotan in Die Walküre, next up is Amfortas. This album is by way of his portfolio. He is joined here by the excellent Bergen Philharmonic under their American principal conductor Andrew Litton who gives the band a good workout in the Overture to The Flying Dutchman and the Prelude to Act III of Die Meistersinger. Indeed, Litton proves himself to be something of an inspired Wagnerian here, constantly generating electricity. Rutherford has a generous vibrato which hopefully won’t develop into an uncontrolled mannerism, but he is alert to the textual nuances and there is dramatic depth aplenty. He clearly shows in the closing track, Wotan’s Abscheid, that he can handle the heavy-duty roles. Recorded last year at the Grieg Hall,in Bergen, the production quality is outstanding as you would expect from Swedish label BIS. Highlights include a lovely O du mein holder Abendstern and two lashings of Hans Sachs where his attention to text really…

Despite numerous recordings, it’s a rare treat to hear the composer’s original 1724 version of his St John Passion captured on period instruments. Richard Egarr directs some of Britain’s most stylish voices, accompanied by his own virtuosic musicians from the Academy of Ancient Music, on a journey through the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Christ. Egarr approaches the latter of Bach’s two surviving Passions with great intensity, asserting his view of the work at an unforgiving pace. Simultaneous movements of choir and musicians are mechanically concise, with individual entries uniform in expression – a consistent sound that comes across as well planned and not at all impersonal. The tenor James Gilchrist’s Evangelist is a real highlight – his earnest recitatives are sung with a near-feminine gentleness – I indulged in every word with utter delight. Matthew Rose and Ashley Riches give reliable performances as Jesus and Pilate, while Sarah Connolly’s arias are sung with seemingly as little effort as would be required for the spoken word. The program notes boast a “more muscular” version, and with instruments and voices combined it rarely disappoints. The articulation of the biblical text sometimes gets lost in the richness of the choral sound, but it’s…

Mahan Esfahani, the young Iranian-American harpsichordist, is becoming one of the most ardent promoters of the instrument today. After a formation that included studies with Australian harpsichordist, Peter Watchorn, he has been bringing the music to new audiences, including the first ever solo harpsichord recital presented at the BBC Proms in 2011. Esfahani is clearly captivated by these sonatas from one of the Bach clan’s most notable scions. Written just before Carl Philipp Emmanuel turned 30 and published in the year he married his wife, the sonatas are dedicated to one of his former students, the Duke of Württenmberg. They embody the marvellous (and mischievous) nonconformist musical attitudes of the age by juxtaposing seemingly random and unconnected passages as part of a whole. This presents the performer with numerous expressive possibilities as well as considerable interpretative challenges. Using a beautiful instrument (which includes an unusual four-foot “flute” register) based on the work of Michael Mietke (1671-1719), maker of harpsichords to the Berlin court, Esfahani delights in the extraordinary range of colour, texture and mood in these pieces. All is sensitively recorded by Hyperion’s engineers. Whether it is the caprice and operatic mock-seriousness that opens the Sonata in B Minor or the vocally inspired material of the Sonata in A…

We’re only just beginning to hear about them in Australia, but the British Sitkovetsky Piano Trio have been steadily collecting rave reviews in Europe and America, even being compared by one reviewer to “the Beaux Arts in their heyday”. That is not a compliment to be given lightly, but if like me you are unable to hear them on their visit here with Musica Viva, this album gives ample backing to the critic’s claim. The trio – violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky, cellist Leonard Elschenbroich and pianist Wu Qian – all met at that great ‘humidicrib’ for British chamber players, the Yehudi Menuhin School in Surrey. They formed back in 2007 and, despite all being established soloists in their own right, they still manage to get together to exploit some of the richest repertoire in the chamber music canon. For their debut album on BIS they chose two great Bohemian works, Dvořák's Trio No 3 in F Minor and Smetana’s G Minor work – both of them outpourings of grief – and the melancholic little gem, Josef Suk’s Elegy, much loved by palm court orchestras. Although both major works were composed in tragic circumstances – Dvořák's when his mother died and Smetana’s after the death of his eldest…

These are exciting performances of two of Prokofiev’s masterpieces but both leave something to be desired. Matsuev has fingers of steel, and once we get past a strangely uninflected opening statement from the clarinet, the Allegro gets underway with a vengeance. Russian musicians are running this performance, and this is the Russian way of playing Prokofiev: hard and fast. There’s no denying the adrenalin rush but subtlety falls by the wayside. It’s bad luck for Matsuev that a set of the Prokofiev concertos has just appeared from Chandos – Jean-Efflam Bavouzet seeks out the lyrical and capricious in Prokofiev while keeping plenty of strength in reserve. In comparison, Matsuev and Gergiev seem blustery and unpolished. In the wartime Symphony No 5, Gergiev nails certain moments like no one else. The climactic theme of the first movement, punctuated by tam-tam and cymbals, is as visceral as could be. However, this theme is played twice and he rushes through the first statement perfunctorily. The passage is more effective in the hands of Karajan and Levine (to cite two first-rate recordings). The scherzo and finale are briskly delivered but Gergiev meanders through the slow movement until the point where musical tension begins to…

Despite a recent snippy comment in the Spectator, I still find Mark Wigglesworth one of the more interesting conductors on the international circuit and his Shostakovich cycle has been distinguished. This release is a popular combination of Shostakovich’s symphonic Alpha and Omega – his First and Fifteenth symphonies. Both were recorded in 2006 and the First appeared with the Second and Third Symphonies on a single CD. Why it has taken almost a decade for BIS to release the Fifteenth is anyone’s guess. The composer burst on the scene with his First Symphony, written at 18, with staggering assurance. It’s an engaging blend of youthful cheekiness and subversion with darker undercurrents. Wigglesworth and his Dutch orchestra handle the kaleidoscopic orchestration and signature moods – humour, wit, agitated energy – deftly, though tempi are measured. The Fifteenth, composed when Shostakovich was already ill, is one of music’s great enigmas by a composer who raised enigma to an art form. The opening, whose first notes we hear on a glockenspiel, was meant to portray a toyshop. Only Shostakovich could conjure up an atmosphere so sinister conveying innocence. The first climax doesn’t occur until the second movement. Here we are in familiar desperation territory and Wigglesworth…

Following up his last collaboration with René Jacobs, a fine Handel recital, Bejun Mehta here presents an intelligent survey of early classical arias. While the great reformer Gluck inevitably opens the programme with the delicious Che purio ciel! from Orfeo ed Euridice, his neglected rival Traetta at last gets his moment in the sun; a scene from his Ifigenia in Tauride in which a slumbering Oreste is tormented by a chorus of Furies is the high point of the recital. Another delight is Se il fulmine sospendi from Gluck’s Ezio and the album fittingly concludes with an aria from that early glimpse of Mozart’s operatic genius Mitridate. Mehta’s voice might not have the beauty of Scholl (in his prime), nor the brilliance of Jaroussky, nor the flash of Hansen but he trumps them in his intensity of dramatic projection, incisive attack and vivid colouring of text. Mention is made in the booklet of the realistic acting innovations of David Garrick as taken up by the castrato Guadagni; the spirit of whom Bejun Mehta seems to be channelling here. Maybe it’s a consequence of the artificiality of the falsetto technique but with so many counter-tenors currently on the scene there is…

John Adams probably wouldn’t like to be hailed the Benjamin Britten of his generation any more than he likes being called a minimalist. But with his 2012 Passion oratorio based on Bach, the American composer follows Britten in proving himself not only as a master orchestrator, but also as composer of the most striking and politically potent vocal music of his time. He also has in common with his British predecessor his gravitation towards earth-shattering historical events with a deeply compassionate response to human tragedies – the September 11 threnody On the Transmigration of Souls and the respectfully handled Israel-Palestine discourse in The Death of Klinghoffer, the latter also based loosely on the Passions of Bach. This two-hour work for large forces, including cimbalom and no fewer than three counter-tenors, features a libretto (drawn from Old and New Testament and poems on faith and liberty) by Peter Sellars, who collaborated with Adams on Nixon in China and staged The Gospel last year – “told not by Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, but rather according to the other John and Peter,” quipped the Los Angeles Times critic. (In fact, events are related in a fascinating new light by the mezzo-soprano soloist…

This superb recital could as easily have been entitled “Jakobean” Lute Music, so complete is London-based Swedish lutenist Jakob Lindberg’s mastery of this music. Equally at home in the Spanish, Italian and Germanic lute repertoire – his Weiss is particularly fine – he has for some decades been one of the foremost interpreters of the Elizabethan and Jacobean lute repertoire. Only Paul O’Dette comes close to matching Lindberg’s combination of stylistic flair and technical ability. One need only compare their respective interpretations of the music of Daniel Bacheler: both players capture to perfection the insouciance of the virtuosic sets of variations and the profundity of the slower pavans and preludes. By the time James I became king in 1603 the lute was well established as the courtly instrument par excellence, and composer/performers of quality and imagination were legion. Apart from Bacheler there was Thomas Robinson, Cuthbert Hely, Robert Johnson, Jacques Gaultier, and the great John Dowland. Together with that most prolific of composers, anon, all the above are represented by typical dance movements such as the pavan, galliard, gigue, courante and sarabande, as well as improvisatory preludes and sets of variations on popular tunes. Performing on his restored Sixtus Rawolf…

Recorded live at Melbourne Recital Centre’s intimate performance space the Salon, this inventive program of compositions, elaborations, improvisations and collaborations seems purpose-built for late-night listening of the more sophisticated variety. Built around pianist Tony Gould and cellist Imogen Manins’ musical meanderings (in a good way) and conversations, Such a Sky explores written and improvised responses to various composers’ works in different styles and through varying textures, the latter lent more variety by the duo’s fellow performers. Thus vocalist Gian Slater lends a lissome, spectral quality to the folklike title track, in which Manins takes off from the song Who Will Buy? From Lionel Bart’s Oliver!; this same disembodied quality is also present as Slater’s looped voice is used as a drone in an effective arrangement of Michael Atherton’s Shall We Dream?, originally for children’s choir. In Gould’s appropriately bluesy setting of WH Auden’s Funeral Blues Slater is more visceral and affecting. Slava Grigoryan’s guitar brings welcome colour and texture to Manins and Gould’s freely expressive playing in three works, two of which – Claus Ogerman’s Valse and Gould’s Johann & Igor – are based on the music of JS Bach (the other is Jobim’s song, Luiza). Colour and texture, but…