Category Archives: CD Review

The complete La vie Parisienne… encore

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A couple of years ago I took a look at the Bru-Zane reconstruction of the “original”; never performed, five act version of Offenbach’s La vie Parisienne.  That version was recorded live on stage in Paris; which was one stop on a multi-city tour.  Now it’s got the full Bru-Zane audio recording treatment complete with a 240 page book with much more information about what they did (and why) to create the performing edition used.  I won’t duplicate what I said in the review of the video but there are some things I noticed anew on the audio version. Continue reading →

Songs by Debussy and Messiaen

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L’extase: Debussy and Messiaen is a new CD from mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená and pianist Mitsuko Uchida.  There are four sets of songs; three by Debussy and one by Messiaen.  The Debussy sets are Trois Chansons de Bilitis which set texts by Pierre Louÿs, Cinq poèmes de Charles Baudelaire and Ariettes oubliées to tests by Paul Verlaine.

To my ear all these cycles inhabit a similar sound world.  It’s very beautiful and languorous for the most part with something just not quite wholesome about it.  We are clearly looking forward to the language of Pelléas et Mélisande.  Only occasionally does something a bit more dynamic happen as in the quite dramatic “La tombeau des Naiades” from the first set and the lively “Chevaux des bois” from the Verlaine settings. Continue reading →

16th century English choral music

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The middle years of the 16th century was an interesting period for English church music.  There was no shortage of musical talent or sponsorship but the political and ecclesiastical landscape was pretty mixed as the pieces chosen for a new CD from the Choir of Trinity College, Melbourne reveal.

The first piece is a setting of the Lord’s Prayer in English by John Sheppard; Informator Choristarum at Magdalen College.  It’s fairly straightforward polyphony but the text is interesting.  It’s in English so it must post date Henry VIII, during whose reign the Mass was still sung in Latin, but the wording is slightly different to that of the first edition of The Book of Common Prayer of 1549 in that, among other minor variations, it concludes with “So be it” rather than “Amen” so we can probably date it to the first two years of Edward’s reign. Continue reading →

The other Iphigénie

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Euripides’ Iphigenia at Tauris formed the basis for an opera almost a century before the more famous one by Gluck.  Henri Desmarets; one of the more notable successors to Lully at Versailles/Paris began work on an Iphigenia opera to a libretto by  Joseph-François Duché de Vancy in the 1690s but work was interrupted by Desmarets being exiled from France for marrying a minor without her father’s permission.  Eventually the Académie Royale de la Musique entrusted the task of completing the opera to André Campra who teamed up with Antoine Danchet as librettist.  The end result was a tragédie lyrique in five acts and a prologue that premiered in 1704 to some success.  An even more successful revival in 1711 led to multiple productions across France and abroad before it was effectively replaced by the Gluck work in 1779. Continue reading →

Saariaho – complete music for piano and harpsichord

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Kaija Saariaho wrote surprisingly little music for solo piano or harpsichord.  Over her 40+ year composing career it amounts to a little under an hour of music and it has now been recorded by Tuija Hakkila who had an association with the composer dating back to 1982.  The disk, Touches, contains eight pieces.  Five are actually for solo piano with one piece for piano and cello (Anssi Karttunen) and two for harpsichord and electronics.

Most of the solo piano music is quite meditative though with a rhythmic flexibility that kind of comes and goes.  It’s complex but not in your face.  Arabesques et adages though is a bit different.  It was composed as a set piece for a piano competition and so, as you would expect, it’s got lots of technical challenges.  It’s fast and complex and louder than much of the other music. Continue reading →

The Girl in My Alphabet

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The Girl in My Alphabet is a 2002 CD of music by Errollyn Wallen; the Belize born composer recently appointed Master of the King’s Music.  It contains six works for various instruments and small ensembles; some with vocals, and it’s very varied.

It starts with Dervish, a 2001 piece for piano and cello, played by Dominic Harlan and Matthew Sharp.  It starts slowly with doom laden piano and scoopy cello but, like a Sufi dance, speeds up and becomes very fast and busy.  An impressive beginning.

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Another nostalgic re-release

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Following on from the du Pré cello concerto recordings I was also fortunate enough to get my hands on another Warner Classics remaster of old EMI recordings.  This one consists of the Barenboim/Klemperer recordings of the five Beethoven piano concertos and the Choral Fantasia recorded with the New Philharmonia Orchestra and the John Allis Choir back in 1967.  I used to own these on vinyl decades ago.  Now they are available as a three SACD set.

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Schmaltz and Pepper on CD

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Schmaltz and Pepper have a CD due for release on May 18th imaginatively called Schmaltz and Pepper.  If you have heard them live you will likely have heard most of the eleven tracks on the CD.  They include songs like I’m Sorry Mama (personal favourite) and Evil Eye, tunes drawn from Jewish folklore like Hershel and the Goblins and Ride to Zaslav and cunning musical jokes like Mozart the Mensch.  It’s all composed by combinations of Eric Abramovitz, Rebekah Wolkstein and Drew Jurecka with a bit of help from Mozart. Continue reading →

Confluencias

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Flamenco is an interesting genre.  It’s journey from India to Southern Spain via the Middle East and North Africa means it has influenced everything from Hindustani classical music through just about the whole Islamic world to its influence on Western classical (imagine Carmen without flamenco) and across the pond to Argentina and tango.  Confluencias; a new Juno nominated album by Lara Wong and Melón Jimenez pays tribute to that global influence with a series of flamenco-jazz numbers inspired by that geographic spread.

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The complete du Pré

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I first started to think seriously about the late Jacqueline du Pré when I saw the Woolf/Vavrek opera Jacqueline in 2020 at Tapestry.  Subsequently I listened to the CD release and attended the remount at Tapestry in February this year.  Then I saw that all of her concerto recordings for HMV (back catalogue now owned by Warner Classics) made between 1965 and 1970 had got a major facelift along the lines of the Solti Ring.  The original analogue tapes have been digitized at 192kHz/24 bit using the latest technology and then remastered for SACD.  The result is a four hybrid SACD box set called The Great Cello Concertos. Continue reading →