Patricia Kopatchinskaja is the latest phenomenon in the galaxy of young violinists who seem to excel at everything they undertake. Following up her Gramophone Bartók/Ligeti/Eötvös Recording of the Year, here come the Stravinsky and Prokofiev Second Concertos. Both were composed within five years of each other but could hardly be more different. Indeed, the Prokofiev inhabits a different universe from its playful neo-classical precursor. Kopatchinskaja states that the work indicates an exquisitely creative “re-ajustment” to Prokofiev’s return to the Soviet Union, an acceptance that “this is the sort of music you have to compose.” She captures the emotional ambiguity of the work perfectly: the uneasy stirring of the G minor opening and the subsequent lyricism tinged with bleakness, her tone impressively kaleidoscopic, alert to every emotional nuance (as are Jurowski and the LPO). The spiritual core is the central movement with its ‘raindrop’ accompaniment – a radiant, rhapsodic oasis, shot through with shards of intensity. The finale seems to tap into Kopatchinskaja’s Moldovan roots: earthy and uncomplicated on one level yet maintaining headlong relentlessness to the last. The Stravinsky is, by contrast, a hard nut to crack, stylistically and psychologically. It took the composer down a path alien to the Russia he’d abandoned,…

Lennox Berkeley has often been more of a biographical footnote than a well known composer. Highly regarded as a teacher (students include Richard Rodney Bennett and the recently passed John Tavener), his oeuvre includes symphonies, opera and chamber music. A collaborator of Britten, he was equally friendly with Ravel and Les Six and his output has a more international sound than many of his British contemporaries. Written between the 1930s and the 1950s, his works for violin and piano immediately strike one for their clarity of purpose. Here is chamber music that is both cultured and approachable. The English violinist Edwin Paling together with the Tasmanian- based pianist Arabella Teniswood- Harvey (the wife of Michael Kieran), proves to be an ideal musician for the task at hand. And here is a task that is both scholastic and musical, bringing together a previously unpublished first Violin Sonata as attractive as any of the other works in this program. Equally fine are the Introduction and Allegro composed for the underrated Israeli violinist Ivry Gitlis and the earlier second sonata written whilst Berkeley studied with Nadia Boulanger. Whilst it is not necessarily ground breaking in terms of invention, Berkeley’s chamber music for violin and piano is…

Tedeschi’s new CD follows on from the success of his first recording, Gershwin and Me, and features the Rhapsody in Blue, the wonderful Preludes, arrangements from the Songbooks and Tedeschi’s own inspired take on Porgy and Bess. Elsewherere he’s joined by Australian jazz trumpeter James Morrison and vocalist Sarah McKenzie. With more arangements of Gershwin songs and pieces such as Promenade, Three-Quarter Blues and Impromptu in Two Keys, it’s a varied and attractive program. Gershwin’s music is able to effortlessly inhabit multiple worlds – blues, jazz, classical and so forth – while maintaining the highest standards of craftsmanship. Tedeschi by contrast is firmly of the classical world, while perfectly able to accommodate the rhythmic and harmonic nuances of Gershwin. This is evident right from the opening work, Promenade, which Tedeschi imbues with a jaunty insouciance; I also loved the sheer exuberance of Jazzbo Brown Blues and the expansiveness of I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise. If Morrison and McKenzie tend to steal the limelight when they appear, that’s more down to Tedeschi’s generosity as a collaborator. But it’s in the solo works that Tedeschi’s art is best savoured, and nowhere more so than in the solo version of Rhapsody in Blue. Here, Tedeschi, unencumbered by the orchestral accompaniment, really soars, An enjoyable…

Hans Werner Henze regarded himself as an outsider in terms of politics, sexuality and race. Upon fleeing Germany in the early fifties, he arrived in Italy where he would remain for the rest of his life – the Teutonic tempered by the Neapolitan sun and indeed the Italian language. He quickly solidified his position as the preeminent German symphonic composer this side of Hindemith although he was seen as conservatively tuneful by the likes of Boulez and Stockhausen. It was during this period that Deutsche Gramophon recorded much of his work commencing with the Neapolitan Songs written for the great Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Such fine recordings form the bulk of this important 16CD set. DFD also features in excerpts from the opera Elegy for Young Lovers and the pro-‘Red’ cantata Der Floss der Medusa (the straw that broke the German middle class back when a red flag was unfurled at the premiere). Highlights include the sublime works commissioned by Paul Sacher, the double concerto for harp and oboe featuring the Holligers and the magical Fantasia for strings (1966) – a movement of which was used over the closing credits to The Exorcist. Later works are included as well as the delightful Undine – the approachable ballet written for Ashton…

Verdi’s monument to a fellow hero of the Risorgimento and his fraught relationship with the Church must strike a chord with Daniel Banreboim drawing parallels with his friendship with Edward Said and interest in Israeli-Palestinian politics. Twety years ago he set down an exciting dramatic account in Chciago but thsoe optimistic days are past; this new recording is a lment for our troubled times – the tone is darker, almost opressively so. Mustival values are better served in chciago whereas spiritual matters are to the fore in Milan; the idfferent characters of the forces are the key – symphonic versus operatic. Despite the presence of Domingo in Chicago the new bunch of soloiosts are superior. Harteros’ vibrant voice can turn pure and gleaming when required and Garanča sounds marvellously rich and idiomatic. Pape is suitably imposing, intelligently singing “on the words”. Kaufmann might sound too teutonic for some ears (not mine) and his vocal production is so worryingly tight that one hopes it doesn’t all go p ear-shaped with overwork. Barenboim’s grasp of long term structure makes this performance work. Whiel there are some tremendous hell-raising moment eh eschews sensationalist effects in favour of a compassioante vision. Whilst… Continue reading…

Volkmar Andreae (1879-1962), the Swiss composer and conductor, is not well known athough he directed the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra from 1906 to 1949 and was so well regarded as a conductor that he was offered the New York Philharmonic after Mahler resigned in 1911. As a young man the musical world almost lost him to the military, and during the First World War he was often released from his duties at the Tonhalle for this purpose. He also led the Zurich Conservatorium between 1914 and 1939. His music is gracious, melodious and attractively romantic. That there is hardly an original note in his compositions will not be of great moment to those drawn to his music. His grandson, conductor Marc Andreae, is part of a determined effort to resurrect the man’s music, backed by Guild, the record label. This CD is a part of that laudable exercise. The Piano Concerto is excellent, and will sound familiar. Those who know the Litolff Scherzo will know what I mean. The first movement, the better of the three, happily plays around in fields inhabited by Grieg and Rachmaninov. Once you get into the single movement Concert Piece, his composition becomes more radiant and freer, with…

Three discs in a year and it’s safe to say that Diego Fasolis is serious about Steffani (1654–1728). The conductor and his energetic period orchestra accompanied Cecilia Bartoli on her Mission album to revive the Italian priest’s reputation, following that success with his sombre, subdued Stabat Mater. Now I Barrochisti step out from under Bartoli’s cassock (see questionable Mission cover art) into their own with an all-instrumental selection from the operas. An Italian who perfected his art in Rome but took up ecclesiastical posts in Munich, Hanover and Düsseldorf, Agostino Steffani somehow became king of the French overture, of which there are several searingly focused examples. He couldn’t have asked for more sympathetic champions in this generous collection of 43 little gems. Fanfare outbursts of natural horns and thundering timpani in Niobe, Regina di Tebe (a neglected opera dusted off at Covent Garden in 2010) add a wild edge to an elegant sound without trampling over the refined, lilting articulation. There’s a delicious lick of the exotic in the light yet detailed percussion of La liberta contenda and Orlando generoso. I Barrochisti relish a playful rigadoun or an uprushing tempest, always making the most of Steffani’s dramatic flourishes. The album’s…

You’d think that naming her new disc of Michael Nyman’s solo piano music after his short piece All Imperfect Things would be inviting critics to pick Sally Whitwell apart. But it’s clear from her previous releases that she proudly wears her personal quirks and imperfections on her sleeve as part of her musical make-up. Literally, in the case of the cover art in question, with the normally punk-styled pianist decked out in foreboding Victorian gothic leather. The portrait suggests an affinity between Whitwell and Ada, the mute heroine of Jane Campion’s The Piano who gives voice to her fiery temperament and innermost desires only through her instrument. Does Sally do the same? Of course, she opens with Ada’s suite of pieces from the best-selling soundtrack that has made Nyman a household name for amateur pianists for the past 20 years. And she does indeed knead some new shapes out of this well-known music. She plays first with lingering rubato and then wildly revs up for the compound rhythms of The Heart Asks Pleasure First – the spark that made her debut Philip Glass album Mad Rush such a success. The floating folk melodies of Silver-Fingered Fling are contrasted with punchy…

Intimidated by the example of Beethoven’s late quartets, Brahms struggled for years before finally publishing his first two string quartets in 1873. By contrast, so inspired was he by the playing of the Meiningen Hofkapelle’s principal clarinettist Richard Mülfeld, whom he met in early 1891, that he wrote the Clarinet Quartet and Clarinet Trio in just a few weeks. Mülfeld and the Joachim Quartet premiered the Clarinet Quartet on December 12, 1891. It was an immediate hit. This beautiful new recording brings together the Clarinet Quintet and the A Minor String Quartet Op 51 No 2. It also brings together the Jerusalem Quartet, formed in 1993 and thanks to Musica Viva no stranger to Australian concert-goers, and that equally enthusiastic advocate for chamber music, Israeli clarinettist Sharon Kam. Excellent performances of the Clarinet Quintet abound. My personal favourites include Thea King with the Gabrieli Quartet on Hyperion and the Nash Ensemble on Wigmore Hall Live: both, true to the nature of the work, eschew any attempt to isolate the clarinet; it is instead effortlessly integrated into the string texture. Which is exactly what Kam does here, trusting individuality to timbre and tone while perfectly weighting volume and phrasing against the…

DG’s new series of Mozart operas helmed by the label’s latest “das Wunder” Yannick Nézet- Séguin, kicked off last year with a superb Don Giovanni. Rolando Villazon is making a low-key comeback after his various vocal crises and has given a different slant to the tenor roles so-far. His Don Ottavio was a refreshingly muscular and Italianate change from the usual polite Mozartian tenors but here his Ferrando is not quite so successful with the more lyrical writing exposing his slightly nasal delivery; the tone now more tight and dry. Miah Persson’s Fiordiligi, a known quantity from an excellent Glyndebourne DVD, is technically immaculate and Angela Brower’s Dorabella is superb with ideal colour and weight of voice. Platchetka’s is an ideal Gugliemo and Corbelli puts in another fine not-too-buffo Don Alfonso however I remain immune to the charms of Mojca Erdmann, DG’s house soubrette. Her Despina is irritatingly arch with all the old clichéd off-key vocal disguises – tediously unfunny! Nézet-Séguin’s direction is superb, more weighted towards period style than before. The recitatives are wonderfully fleet and conversational, tempi are ideal, the finales thrilling with precise articulation. It may seem churlish to complain that this set is not at the…

As well as being one of the greatest composers of the 20th century, Benjamin Britten was also a distinguished conductor, accompanist and chamber musician. Collected here for the first time, in this captivating 26 CD box, are the fruits of his most important labours in these fields. Britten’s singular talent was for getting inside the mind of his fellow composers, whether it be Mozart, Schubert or Elgar, and generating something entirely original. It’s not always what they might have wanted (he takes untold liberties with The Dream of Gerontius), but he seldom fails to excite, often with a heart-stopping moment of enormous originality.   Highlights include a revolutionary reading of Schumann’s Scenes from Goethe’s Faust – a masterpiece scarcely touched until this 1972 recording, his landmark Schubert and Schumann recitals accompanying Peter Pears and that radical Elgar, pushing the envelope farther than even Barbirolli was prepared to go.   If his Bach is less well recorded and a million miles from the period instrument school of thought, his Brandenburgs are still one of the best pre-1970 versions. Other classics include Mozart piano concertos with Clifford Curzon as soloist, his visionary Mozart and Schubert for two pianos where he’s joined by Sviatoslav Richter and Schubert’s Arpeggione with Rostropovich. All in all, a must have.

Here are two exceptional reissues. The Brahms consists of 1980s recordings featuring András Schiff with the Takács Quartet in the F Minor Piano Quintet, and with Viennese colleagues in the Horn and Clarinet Trios. VPO principal clarinetist Peter Schmidl is heard in the Clarinet Quintet. If that weren’t enough, Schiff plays the four-hand Variations on a Theme of Schumann, joined by no less a partner than Georg Solti. This fine collection covers works from all periods of Brahms’s life, but is especially recommendable for the autumnal late works. An interesting comparison may be made with the heart-on-sleeve Clarinet Quintet played by a Viennese ensemble of an earlier era, in the massive but treasurable Westminster Chamber Music collection. Fascinating generational differences. The ASMF disc restores Argo recordings from 1968 when Neville Marriner still played violin with the ensemble. Boccherini’s late quintet (one of over a hundred of the composer’s works in this form) is typically gentle and mellifluous, while Mendelssohn’s Octet is a recognised masterpiece. Both are very well played, though I think the Academy’s English good manners suit Boccherini better.