Music is the key

Osvaldo Golijov has long felt a kinship with Berio ' s music, and he ' s created a song cycle, Ayre , to demonstrate Dawn Upshaw ' s vocal range, just as Berio did with Cathy Berberian ' s in his Folk Songs . Golijov says he “saw a rainbow" when he first realized the range of colour in Upshaw ' s voice. Upshaw says: “ Ayre takes me vocally to places where I have never been before: in aesthetic terms, it ' s opened new doors." The cycle is scored for an ensemble similar to Berio ' s, but also including the accordion and ronroco (an Argentinian variant of the charango, a small South American fretted lute) and also the laptop, which Golijov regards as a 21st-century folk instrument. The klezmer-tinged clarinet solos were inspired by David Krakauer, the world ' s most celebrated klezmer innovator; two of the songs were written by Gustavo Santaolalla; Wa Habibi comes from the Arab superstar Fairouz; Miles Davis ' s Sketches of Spain i...

On Nuevo , a collection of music from Mexico spanning nearly 100 years, Kronos Quartet presents a kaleidoscopic view of a music as diverse as the culture of the country itself. On each track, the group’s sound is transformed, through the collaborative efforts of co-producers Gustavo Santaolalla, the noted Argentinean musician and Rock en Español producer, longtime Kronos producer Judith Sherman, and Kronos Artistic Director David Harrington, as well as through arrangements by composers Osvaldo Golijov, Stephen Prutsman, and Ricardo Gallardo, whose efforts serve to reflect the individual spirit and character of each song. Harrington notes that walking through Mexico City inspired the record. “I became fascinated with this sense of the layering of things there—of time, of music, of culture, of art … And how you’d walk down the street and never know what you’re going to hear next.” The sonic landscape of Nuevo suggests the vastness of Mexican culture, a diverse array of ...

Maurizio Pollini began to record his cycle of Beethoven's piano sonatas for Deutsche Grammophon in 1975, and he's only now nearing its completion. This collection of early works is the penultimate instalment; like most of its predecessors, they are studio recordings made in Lucerne and Munich last year, and like many of Pollini's recent discs and live performances, a curious mix of the magisterial and the severe. The two tendencies co-exist in the biggest of the sonatas here, the E flat Op 7, where passages of fabulous clarity and poise are punctuated with explosive chords that seem out of scale in early Beethoven, while parts of Op 22 in B flat are curiously abrupt too. But sometimes the overbearing element can vanish altogether, as it does in Pollini's delicate, quicksilver account of the first of the Op 14 pair, in G major . No one who has followed this cycle will think twice about hearing this latest batch of performances; those who might want to explore Beethov...

Harmonia Mundi's Rebel: Elements -- Vivaldi: Four Seasons combines two of the Baroque's biggest instrumental barnburners as performed by one of the top period instrument groups in Europe, Akademie für Alte Musik, Berlin, under the leadership of concertmasters  and featuring their star attraction, violinist Midori Seiler. Like Vivaldi's often derided as over-familiar Four Seasons, Jean-Féry Rebel's 1737 ballet Les Éléments does not want for good recordings, but it is nowhere near as famous as the Vivaldi; this is the first time the two have been combined on a recording, and these pieces are quite compatible given their shared, programmatic purposes. Inasmuch as the Akademie für Alte Musik, Berlin is concerned, these recordings reflect a staged performance of the two works as prepared for a festival in Italy in the fall of 2009 in collaboration with choreographer Juan Kruz Diaz de Garaio Esnaola. Some might find that the staging of instrumental -- or at least non-dramat...

How four solid musicians of international repute can produce so blemished a recording of Messiaen’s chamber music masterpiece is anyone’s guess, let alone approve it for release. The most glaring inaccuracies pockmark the serene final movement. Here Myung-Whun Chung misreads each 32nd note as a 16th. Did the composer really want this? Gil Shaham’s intonation is not what it should be, and neither is Paul Meyer’s. The latter’s long sustained E-sharps in the unaccompanied third movement, along with the low B-sharp at measure eight, will make sensitive ears wince. Long before this disc was released in the U.S., one of my European colleagues drew attention to cellist Jian Wang’s early start of the glissando in the fourth movement’s third-to-last measure, which throws the ensemble off. In the fifth movement, Wang prepares for high notes with pronounced left-hand shifts that often telegraph the pitch a split second before it’s supposed to be heard. Tashi’s Fred Sherry, by contrast, cont...

These dazzling works . . . make great showstoppers and encores, but what's surprising is how satisfying they turn out to be in their own right. Beginning with a couple of Spanish dances, it's apparent from the get-go how effortlessly the 30-year-old masters the technical challenges of works designed to leave jaws on floor. She sounds like she's having fun, and why wouldn't she, especially in "Zigeunerweisen", whose czárdás rhythm allows Fischer and accompanist Milana Chernyavska to demonstrate how convincingly a German and a Ukrainian can perform Spanish music inspired by Hungarian gypsies . . . What a terrific, entertaining disc. Record Review / Martin Buzacott, Limelight Magazine (Australia) / 19. February 2013 The dazzling showpieces of violin legend Pablo Sarasate meet their match in Julia Fischer, one of the most sought-after musicians of her generation, delivering virtuoso pyrotechnics in a stunning recital disc. The key track i...

György Kurtág (b. 1926) and György Ligeti (1923-2006) were friends, for more than sixty years. “For a long time, a lifetime, Ligeti led me onward,” said Kurtág. “I followed him—sometimes right behind him and other times years or even decades later. I call it my ‘Imitatio Christi’ syndrome. The first years of our friendship were marked not only by his intellectual leadership. I oriented my taste according to his example.” Yet how different are their respective oeuvres: Ligeti vastly prolific, Kurtág parsimonious in his productions, strongly self-critical, determined to justify every note (“Every tone has to be deserved”). For parallel artistic allies one might have to look beyond music: to literature perhaps, to Joyce’s cascading riverrun of language and Beckett grimly squeezing drops of inspiration from a dry sponge. Kurtág and Ligeti had a similar aesthetic relationship: sharing a nationality – and a “mother tongue” in Bartók – their contrasting temperaments took ...

Water is one of the most fundamental elements of our physical world and of life on earth. It also has enormous symbolic significance in many cultures as the source and transmitter of life. We humans are indeed made up largely of water. Such is the value of water that disputes arise over its availability. Where previous wars have been fought primarily over territory, economic gain and the securing of mined resources such as oil, many predict that water itself will be at the heart of future conflict. Water has also been much on the mind of many of my compatriots in recent times. The past few years of history-breaking drought in Australia have brought much devastation and despair across the country. It is impossible to ignore the seriousness of the scenarios that may await us, be they through war, or simply through the effects of drought and fire. Even my new home town of Melbourne, a coastal city and traditionally, even notoriously, well serviced by rainfall, has spent much of the ...

“If we live on this planet, we must surely believe in a higher power, whatever that may be. That is something I feel when I perform this music.”-- Magdalena Kozena The new recording from Magdalena Kozena features deeply-felt interpretations of sacred songs from the Baroque to the 20th Century In a rare recording collaboration, she is joined by virtuoso Christian Schmitt, in music for voice and organ from the sacred traditions of Germany, Austria, France and England, as well as her native Czechoslovakia. Of course, the album includes music by J.S. Bach – a composer with whom Magdalena Kozena has long been associated - with sacred aspects of German song represented by Hugo Wolf and Schubert The French tradition is heard in the music of Bizet, Ravel and the great Parisian organist Maurice Durufle. Bizet’s Agnus Dei and Verdi’s Ave Maria reveal less familiar aspects of composers more often associated with opera houses than churches, whilst Henry Purcell’s ...

Yannick Nézet-Séguin's first symphonic recording with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra on Deutsche Grammophon is of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in B minor, "Pathétique," which the conductor has known intimately throughout c, this is a solid reading that holds its own against the large number of recordings of this symphony, so listeners who need a first-rate version can be assured of the interpretation and the performance. Yet because this is one of the most frequently recorded classical pieces of all time, one may wonder what Nézet-Séguin brings to it that makes his rendition necessary. Perhaps his sense of pacing and calculated use of rubato for dramatic effect make it feel more organic than most, and his sudden shifts of tempo and emphasis on heightened dynamics make this one of the most interesting versions to follow. But in the end, there's not enough to distinguish it from the competition, so listeners should not expect a major revelation...

The Argentinian-born pianist Ingrid Fliter, a winner of the prestigious 2006 Gilmore Artist Award and a former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist has already made three recordings for the EMI label - one of Beethoven and two of Chopin - that have garnered much critical acclaim, but this new coupling of the two Chopin Piano Concertos is her first to appear on the Linn label. As a former silver medal winner in the 2000 Frederic Chopin in Warsaw in it is clear that the music of this composer is not only at the centre of Ingrid Fliter's repertoire, but from an early age has occupied a special place in her psyche. In both concertos the fluency of Fliter's playing is matched by especially clean articulation and a welcome forward momentum. Her use of rubato is finely controlled, yet in both slow movements there is no lack of poetry, thanks especially to her limpid cantabile playing. The scintillating performances of the outer movements of these two concertos exemplif...

This recording has it all: some of the most marvelous music ever written for the violin; beautiful, lively sound-take; refreshingly intimate program notes; but more important than any of that, two truly first-class performers. The double CD is a real treasure. Rachel Podger is that rare find, a violinist with the sweetest sound, a flawless intonation, technique so good that it just disappears in the background, a musical instinct that is always awake, and a sense of style that permeates every musical gesture. She can convey exuberant joy or thoughtful sadness, and it all sounds round and luscious and exciting. The first movement of BWV 1023, for example, with its startling beginning, full of cumulative tension leading to a lyrical reflection, is a feat of simultaneous intellectual understanding and concentrated emotion. Trevor Pinnock proves here that he deserves the high reputation he enjoys. His accompaniment is always sensible and sensitive, providing a ...

Australian concert-goers have sampled the mesmerising choral sound of the Baltic as championed by Stephen Layton in 2010. Now Layton and his British group Polyphony introduce the young Latvian composer Eriks Esenvalds, whose a cappella and accompanied choral works are accessible for their heartfelt expressions of suffering and joy. The Latvian struggle for independence from the Soviet Union has been dubbed the “Singing Revolution”, in which freedom fighters raised their voices in a chorus of forbidden songs. His Passion draws on sacred texts in English and Latin, and the impossibly pure Polyphony tone wrings devastating emotional impact from every syllable. The warm plainchant opening is gradually submerged in glassy string dissonance from the Britten Sinfonia. Extreme changes of mood and atmosphere fade seamlessly into one another so that the climax’s stormy repetitions of “crucify!” lull themselves into the gentlest of prayers. Carolyn Sampson’s haunting, at tim...

“There’s something almost physical about the way in which Tüür moves and shapes the sound masses that his textures generate, so that the music offers a variety of perspectives – on one level the intricate construction offers constantly changing patterns and arrays, on another the sheer weight of sound is sculpted into large-scale gestures, so that the ear switches from one to the other.” Andrew Clements’s description, in The Guardian, of Tüür’s “Exodus” can be applied, with no less justification, to the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra and “Aditus”. There is a new physicality to Tüür’s music, the Estonian composer concurs: “This development started with the Cello Concerto (refer to the ECM album Flux , recorded 1998), and one of the main issues now is dealing with the energetic forces in music. All the different compositional tools employed – the different rhythmic patterns, and chord structures and harmonic progressions – are not aims in themselves but ways of form...

“Oxymoron” – contradictory terms in conjunction – seems to be a perfectly appropriate metaphor for a music which continues to be characterised by juxtapositions of seemingly heterogeneous musical idioms, by sudden contrasts and simultaneous movements in different speeds and which thus opens wide and adventurous spaces that are conceived with a rare sense of architecture and musical dramaturgy. As Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich points out in his liner notes, “each musical quality gives rise intrinsically to its opposite…dramatic vitality thus derives from rigour itself.” Tüür’s fourth ECM-album, consisting entirely of premier recordings of recent works, offers the opportunity to follow the stylistic development the Estonian has taken since the early nineties. His intense work with the performers who have championed his work for many years results in particularly fine and careful interpretations. “Dedication” is the earliest piece recorded here. “It was started in 1990 as a th...