I’m beginning to think that Mahler’s First Symphony is conductor-proof. Almost every version I’ve heard lately has merit and Marin Alsop’s with the Baltimore Symphony is no exception, despite an overall restraint. The opening of the first movement, surely one of the most magical of any symphony, is very slow until the explosion in the coda. In fact, the first three movements are all slightly slower than usual, whereas the final one is slightly swifter. Perhaps the second Scherzo/Ländler movement lacks the last ounce of what Germans call schwung – bounce or swing – but the central section doesn’t sound too inebriated, as it sometime can. I wondered whether or not it was just me who thought that the third-movement funeral march (Frère Jacques in a minor key) seemed to have been recorded at a higher level than the rest, and I’ve since discovered another review which garnered the same reaction. Another unwelcome development is the double bass melody, which forms the backbone of the movement, being played by the entire section, not a solo. The same reviewer who noticed the disparate recording levels also points out, helpfully, that the Jewish klezmer music in the trio is conducted with what…

Osmo Vänskä’s “trim, taut and terrific” approach to Sibelius survives into his second cycle where the First Symphony, at just 34 minutes, almost manages to efface completely the traditional Tchaikovskian breadth. Fortunately, we still hear plenty of harp throughout, especially in my favourite passage, the exquisitely delicate section of the slow movement where the woodwinds and triangle are quite magic. If symphonies were people, Sibelius’s Fourth would be the ultimate anti-hero. Here, tempi
 are much more conventional
 and Vänskä moulds the music superbly in the opening movement where the fusion of bleakness and inscrutability as they materialise out of Stygian gloom is strangely beautiful and moving. The second- movement Scherzo peters out in a strange, almost sinister, ellipsis, but it is in the slow movement – the emotional core of the work – where the particles simply stop vibrating as the temperature reaches absolute zero and Vänskä plumbs the depths with the best of them. In the final movement Sibelius, seemingly perversely, introduces glockenspiel and tubular bells, of all instruments. Most conductors opt for one or the other. (In one recording, Ormandy uses both,
 but not together.) Vänskä, wisely I think, uses the former, as tubular bells always sound to…

Petrenko is transforming what has always been a good orchestra into an undeniably outstanding one, catapulting the RLPO into the very top of the second tier – no mean achievement and no faint praise. Their recent Rachmaninov Third Symphony was a harbinger about Petrenko’s calibre as a Rachmaninov interpreter, and this superb account of No 2 more than fulfills that promise. Few, if any other Romantic symphonies, need as convincing a pulse in the first movement. By the end of the Largo and Allegro Moderato, Petrenko has delivered slow-release incandescence with both conviction and that uniquely Slavic sense of yearning. He’s not afraid to employ quite striking rubatos without resorting to sentimental overstatement, and the formidable climaxes are beautifully integrated. The second-movement Scherzo with its initial Prokofiev-like spikiness is easier to bring off, but in the Adagio we’re back in the emotional heartland with a polished but tender clarinet solo. The finale erupts spectacularly, Petrenko’s lively but sensible pace reassuring me that this really was a vintage Rach 2, not one which fell at the last hurdle. It’s thrilling how he gradually gathers momentum in the Allegro Vivace. The other works, orchestral excerpts from the opera Aleko, are well chosen…

The most gorgeous thing, even though it’s not exactly a bargain, and it’s never sounded better either.

In an industry said to be in more or less dire straits by various sources, I’m amazed that a small boutique label like Oehms can afford to issue two recordings of Mahler’s Resurrection symphony with different conductors and orchestras. Simone Young’s Hamburg recording followed
 hot on the heels of Markus Stenz’s Cologne effort. Now, here is another Markus Stenz live performance with the Melbourne Symphony, of which he was chief conductor. Stenz proved his credentials as a Mahler conductor during his slow-release cycle a few years ago. This performance dates from December 2004. I don’t know why it’s taken almost a decade to reach us. That said, I enjoyed this traversal. It’s quite different from Simone Young’s: more volatile, with a much greater range of tempos and moods. Occasionally, I felt he skated over details in the first movement and the phrasing risked sounding perfunctory. (Perhaps ironically, this version is overall about four minutes longer than Young’s.) The Minuet movement is commendably unsentimental
 but the Scherzo is taken too 
fast for it to register its sardonic and demonic quality. Both Stenz’s soloists, mezzo-soprano Bernadette Cullen and soprano Elizabeth Whitehouse, seem more comfortable than their Hamburg counterparts. Also, in the Urlicht…

As regular readers will know, I’ve often been unimpressed by Gergiev’s sadly variable LSO Mahler cycle, where he often had even less to say about the music than Ashkenazy. I’m happy to say I was entranced by this 2-CD set from beginning to end. For once, the cliché “unjustly neglected” is totally accurate in describing the shameful overlooking of these three genuine masterpieces. The First and Third have long been my favourite Tchaikovsky symphonies; until now my preferred version of No 1 was the youthful Michael Tilson Thomas with his Boston forces, and in the Third either Bernstein’s 1960s New York Philharmonic or Karajan’s 1980s Berlin Phil. Gergiev’s First, Winter Daydreams, is simply gorgeous. The combination of panache, finesse and imagination in the first movement is wonderful: you can almost feel the chill on the rosy cheeks of Romanov aristocrats with exquisite noses and perfect cheekbones, as they travel through the wondrous winter landscape, swathed in sable in a troika. The tender phrasing of the second subject is worth the price of the set alone. The second movement is a wistful reverie and the scherzo is jewel-like. I’ve often regarded the Second Symphony, the so-called Little Russian, aka Ukraine, as…

I found these performances of Schubert’s two Piano Trios sublime. I’ve long admired Schiff’s Schubert Sonatas, especially his intimate affectionate phrasing – which is, admittedly, sometimes a little too affectionate. The performances are wonderfully persuasive, with steady tempos which never drag and impressive chemistry (he and the violinist are married). I’d never sampled Miklós Perényi’s playing before, but on the strength of these performances, I thinks he’s been seriously underestimated. The trio play off each other and don’t “break out” jarringly with their solos and remain, in character, as it were, to preserve the existing mood and the architecture of the whole. What I also loved was the balance between exuberance and reflection. I sometimes think this calibration is even more important in Schubert than in Mozart. The B-major trio is obviously the sunnier of the two but it’s the later, E flat D 929, one of Schubert’s last chamber works, composed under the shadow of death, which moved me indescribably. Despite the key signature, which in Beethoven heralds heroic deeds etc, here is Schubert at his most declamatory, but also at his most ruminative. Some commentators discern a decline in quality of the last two movements but you’d never…

My introduction to Rachmaninov’ s Second Symphony was a welcome distraction from Camus, Jane Austen and Virgil studies for my HSC. I loved it from the start. My introduction to Tadaaki Otaka’s first splendid version, with the BBC Welsh National Orchestra, came many years later and I was equally impressed. He continues to acquit himself as a masterful and instinctive Rachmaninov interpreter in a rendition which wins hands down, in both performance and recording, against Ashkenazy’s tepid, enervated reading with the Sydney Symphony, itself a mere epigone of that conductor’s radiant Concertgebouw version.  The secret in this potentially sprawling work is to gauge the pulse of the opening movement, making the ebb and flow convincing and grading the climaxes – in other words, keeping your powder dry. No other symphony I know radiates such a powerfully Russian sense of yearning amid the glamorous scoring, enriched by Otaka’s haunting, affectionate (without appearing to milk every bar of emotion) and ultimately stirring insights. Tempi are well judged – I particularly responded to the precision in the Prokofiev-like spikiness of the Scherzo and the tenuto used to great effect just before the final climax.  A colleague whom I knew had been in the…

I always found Christoph Eschenbach a much better pianist than conductor: his 1968 recording of Beethoven’s First Concerto with Karajan was unforgettable and his insights into the Op 111 Sonata many years later ranks among the best. By contrast, his conducting often seems stodgy. So this stunning performance and recording of the Missa Solemnis came as a revelation. The London Philharmonic Orchestra is in sizzling and quite virtuosic form. Running to just over 80 minutes, tempos are mainstream. I was hurtled backward in my chair – like, I imagine, most of the audience – with the velocity and ferocity of the choral fugue in the Gloria. The (appropriately) manic sound of the choir in Beethoven’s cruel tessitura of this paroxysm remind me that he may well have been mad when he composed it. The singing is largely undiffereniated and unnuanced and the diction is pretty unclear, but the result is impressive nonetheless.  No one will ever eclipse Klemperer’s implacable juggernaut (EMI) here. The soloists are more than satisfactory, although the soprano Anne Schwanewilms and Nicolai Schukoff are the most distinguished of the four. Dietrich Henschel is no Martti Talvela. Pieter Schoeman’s solo violin in the Benedictus is balm for the…

Perversely, I was hoping that this Rachmaninov Third Symphony would be a dud, making it easier to recommend unequivocally the recent Noseda/BBC Philharmonic recording on Chandos – fat chance with these forces. EMI (or whatever they’re called now after yet another acquisition) have done their latest star recruits proud in this elusive work, which combines elegance, nostalgia, wistfulness and sheer glamour. The contoured phrasing is as curvaceous as Betty Grable’s hips (not as bizarre an analogy as you might first think, as this work is as suffused – consciously or otherwise –  as much with the spirit of Hollywood as Romanov Russia). The RLPO’s string tone is fabulously lush but the playing is refined without ever a hint of blowziness in the “big” tunes, with both pellucid textures and dramatic energy throughout: I’ve never heard the opening of the finale or its reprise at the very end played with such manic velocity, beautifully captured by EMI’s engineers. The central movement has a captivating tenderness and the rhythms in the Scherzo interlude are whip-crackingly precise. Petrenko also avoids the episodic or fragmented approach one sometimes hears. The other pieces on the CD make it a calling card for the RLPO’s newfound…

I dimly recall a Decca release in the early 1970s of Ashkenazy in the Rachmaninov Suite No 1 (Fantasie Tableau for two pianos, Op 5) with André Previn. I doubt whether it could have had more charm than this performance from Vladimir and his son Vovka. The rapport between the two pianists is seemingly effortless in drawing the listener into this magical music. I particularly responded to the gentle swirling effects of the introductory barcarolle and to the alternating intensity and ravishing lyricism of the central two movements, La Nuit, L’Amour (“Night…Love”) and Les larmes, (“Tears”). Night on the Bald Mountain doesn’t have quite the same spellbinding quality. I found the staccato passages a little relentless, although there’s clearly no other way to play them. Glinka’s Valse-Fantasie lends itself perfectly to duo piano treatment. It could have been penned by Tchaikovsky at his most melancholy.  Wonderful as they are, not even the spectacular virtuosity and chemistry of these two pianists can replicate the colour, glamour and visceral excitement of the orchestral version of Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor. The Scriabin Fantasy in A Minor is somewhat more structured and less amorphous than so much of his output, described by a friend…

Charles ll wrote of his niece Anne’s (later Queen Anne) husband, Prince George of Denmark, “I’ve tried him drunk and I’ve tried him sober and there’s nothing in him”. Well, I’ve tried Havergal Brian’s Gothic Symphony stone cold sober and after a couple of not-so-wee drams and I still can’t get a handle on it. This sprawling, amorphous behemoth has long been a cult work even among people who’ve never heard it (just about everybody). Attempting to do this work justice in a normal review is a bit like trying to inscribe The Bible on the head of a pin. The first three purely orchestral movements – supposedly connected to the Faust legend – are quite impressive in a guess-the-composer way, with their exciting thrust, especially the manic xylophone solo (rather like the demented organ solo at the end of Janácek’s Glagolitic Mass) although I was never aware of the Guinness World Record-breaking statistics of the orchestral forces involved. There’s none of the sense of heft as there is in, say, Mahler’s Eighth. It’s in the second section – what must be the largest, longest setting of the Te Deum in existence – that things start to unravel. The choral…