★★★★★ A perfect example of the level of musicianship of which this orchestra is truly capable.

Since graduating from the Tasmanian Conservatorium in 1987, reed-playing multi-instrumentalist Paul Cutlan has worked in a wide variety of styles from contemporary classical to jazz and world music. The central work on this disc, the Across the Top suite, is inspired by his work with world music ensemble MARA! on their Musica Viva tour for schools and Indiginous groups across the North of Australia in 2007. All four works on this Tall Poppies disc are influenced by folk music, filtered through composers like Bartók, Britten, Stravinsky and Sculthorpe, and melded with the ideas and practices of jazz improvisation. This never meanders, however, but is all tightly structured and highly approachable, and is, when all’s said and done, best described as chamber music of deep purpose and clarity. Improvisation and world music, when they do occur, are used to enhance Cutlan’s compositional ideas, and his sense of tonal colour and instrumental textures are indeed highly alluring. Those who are familiar with the NOISE string quartet’s recent set of improvised works on two CDs will have some idea of what to expect from their contributions. With Balkan specialists Llew and Mara Kiek, as well as one of Australia’s finest bassists, Brett Hirst,…

Vengerov justifies the hype that sees him placed as the finest before the public today.

Though Ge Gan-Ru was raised and educated in Shanghai where he would discover the Western avant garde (Stockhausen, Cage and Crumb), like Tan Dun and Bright Sheng, upon moving to the US he would adopt a hybrid style bringing together traditional Chinese elements with a style associated with American modernists such as Copland and Bernstein. It was during his period of overseas study that, homesick, he would experience recurring “dreams of the street scenes and sounds of old Shanghai”, which led to a wish to compose music that would bring a coalescence of East with West. And Shanghai Reminiscences is the musical realisation of that wish. Opening this large-scale work we hear the chanting monks and bells of his beloved Jing An temple, placed within an emotional and harmonic milieu akin to Bernstein’s Symphony No 2 (The Age of Anxiety). Woven into this ingenious work, the listener also discovers elements of traditional Peking opera and folk tunes set against the more familiar (for us) sound world of the Western violin. The other piece on this disc is Butterfly Overture, a tribute to his first teacher at the Shanghai Conservatory, Chen Gang who composed the Butterfly Lovers violin concerto – still…

Music inspired by the atrocities of the 20th century perhaps took a while to reach their peak with Britten’s magisterial War Requiem in the early 1960s, but with the centenary of the battle of Gallipoli this year, there has been a plethora of recordings of music inspired by the horrors of World War I. Some have been more successful than others but I’m glad to state that this new Melba release by the very fine Melbourne-raised and Juiliard-trained pianist Benjamin Martin, must immediately take its place at the top of the pile. There is something quite unique about this disc, which presents a well selected programme of solo piano music by a group of fine orchestral English composers whom we we do not initially associate with the solo keyboard (Bax, Vaughan Williams, Bridge and Delius), immaculately played and intimately performed by Martin. All of this music ranks amongst the earliest inspired by the Great War – all of it being written during the 1920s and all of it is as equally affecting as the best of the period’s song cycles. Perhaps the finest work lies with Vaughan Williams’ Prelude after a piece by Orlando Gibbons, dovetailing English music across the…

Prior to the recorded age, composers made piano transcriptions for a number of reasons. In the case of Gustav Mahler, transcriptions were presented to orchestral organisations and musicians who had expressed an interest in presenting one of his densely contrapuntal vistas to their audiences. To such a purpose, his popular Resurrection Symphony, which took the composer six years to write, has given birth to two such arrangements including one for piano duet by Mahler’s disciple and specialist, Bruno Walter in the latter years of the 19th century. A third, perhaps more satisfying approach was taken by Heinrich von Bocklet after the composer’s death and it is this which receives its discographic premiere in this excellent Melba release. It does take the ear a while to readjust to this more intimate and chamber-like impression, but here we have four pianists aiming towards a single and coherent performance, rather than having to bypass the often egocentric excesses involving a conductor and orchestral forces, thereby honing in on Mahler’s actual intents. The hushed, otherworldly quality of Urlicht seems appropriately lit from within, though the finale’s choral outburst may lack a little in power. However, all in all, here is an excellent guide towards understanding this great emotional work with even greater insight. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

A well-designed programme with much time devoted to the true masters of cabaret.

Phil Scott stars in a unique and perhaps the most successful show that he has produced to date.

The name Siegfried Mauser may not be familiar to Western European ears, but those who do know the name know him as a pianist who has specialised in 20th century German contrapuntal pianism from the likes of Hindemith, Hartmann and Henze. Now is probably the optimum time for him to be investigating Mozart’s keyboard sonatas as he has also published a text on them and has recently been made head of the Salzburg’s esteemed Mozarteum. Of course there have been many surveys of this cycle and it often comes down to personal favourites. Mine include the straightforward approach of the 50s’ EMI cycle by Walter Gieseking. For modern cycles, I’ve long been an advocate of Mitsuko Uchida’s fine Philips traversal. Frustrating and amusing by turn, I’ve also been fascinated by Glenn Gould (Sony), where critics have gone so far as to suggest that this must rank amongst the worst discs ever made! Yet somehow in spite of his distortions, Mozart’s music survives and encourages debate, and surely this is important. Against this backdrop Mauser may appear as coy if not conservative, for he is completely at ease in letting this music speak on its own behalf. And surely the fact…

With this second disc devotedto the music of Joaquín Turina, the BBC Philharmonic and conductor Juanjo Mena present highly idiomatic and colourful evocations of the composer’s native region of Andalusia. Built around the song cycle that gives the disc its name, native soprano Maria Espada gives the most persuasive account of the orchestral song cycle since the old mono recording by Victoria De Los Ángeles (EMI). Not only is she successful at colouring this evocative score, Espada is highly sympathetic to the composer’s desire to bring his beloved home city of Seville so vividly to life with its gypsy rhythms and religious processions. As in the other compositions here, Turina brings an almost technicolor brillliance to these, and it is this quality, aided and abetted by the conductor, which makes this disc such an enjoyable experience. One must also applaud the sheer virtuosity brought to bear by an orchestra of the calibre of the BBC Philharmonic. Elsewhere, these almost electric interpretations bring Turina’s Andalusia to life, be it in La procesión del Rocio, Danzas gitanas or the more intimate sound world of Rapsodia sinfónica for piano and string orchestra wherein Martin Roscoe proves an ideal soloist. Recorded in such vivid, naturalistic…

Here is a really indispensible set of recordings.

Angela Hewitt has made a career as the other great Bach pianist from Toronto, though like her predecessor, Glenn Gould, she has recorded much more widely – from Couperin to Ravel. This is the third instalment in an ongoing cycle of Mozart’s Piano Concerti – this one devoted to two of his larger scale later works, No 22 with its varied instrumental accompaniment and the grand C Minor with its inventive clarinet obbligato. Hewitt has chosen live performances – though you’d never guess it, so quiet and unobtrusive is the audience. And while there is an occasional blurred or overplayed passage where the left hand dominates, the variety of colour is amazing. Her performances are informed as much by earlier piano practice as individual insight. She is joined by the National Arts Centre Orchestra who are equally vividly caught by the microphones, bringing out those inner incisive rhythms that we associate so strongly with Mozart. These are personal performances which admirably capture much of Hewitt’s live allure and we must remember that these concerti were ‘cutting edge’ when Mozart wrote them in the mid 1780s – so new in fact, that this was a mere decade after the introduction of the clarinet…