Category Archives: CD

Dame Nellie Melba

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The First Recordings

TPT: 56’16”

476 3556 Melba

ABC Classics 476 3556

reviewed by Neville Cohn

Nellie Melba, for much of her career, was arguably the most famous Australian in the world. The aura of glamour about her sustained public interest to an astonishing degree for years.

A recently released CD features recordings Melba made at the height of her career, a marvellous insight into one of the greatest voices ever to be captured on gramophone records. Almost all the tracks here were made in 1904 at Melba’s luxurious and extravagantly furnished home in London’s Great Cumberland Place, near Marble Arch.

Let’s look at some of the economics of those sessions, drawn from Roger Neill’s fascinating liner notes.

For this series of recordings done over a number of days, Melba was paid one thousand British pounds, a staggering fee that equates now to around 80,000 pounds. Moreover, her contract required that her gramophone recordings would be sold at one guinea each ie 21 shillings or one pound, one shilling, this equating nowadays to about 80 pounds. I cannot readily think of anyone nowadays who would be prepared to pay such a sum for a recording running for perhaps four or so minutes.

It was, and still is, a staggering indication of how much in demand Melba was in singing terms. As well, her contract stipulated that for each record sold, she was to receive a royalty of five shillings which, too, added up to a more than tidy sum. The public was insatiable.

In Sydney, not long after these recordings were made, a concert which consisted of people listening to Melba’s voice on a gramophone positioned on a small table was sold out fourteen times running! And for those interested in such matters, King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra purchased a gramophone and many of the recordings on this CD, some of which they played for their guest at Buckingham palace:Archduke Franz Ferdinand  who would be assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, thus tipping the world into the Great War 1914 – 1918.

How we have come on since 1904. In those days, records were sold in ordinary brown paper packets, sometimes with advertising on them, unlike nowadays when there is almost information overkill in the liner note booklets that come with each CD.

But the real joy of this collection is, of course, the singing which gives one an opportunity to savour one of the world’s truly magical voices. Melba may have been unpleasant as a human being, an unabashed social climber and rough with those she considered her inferiors – but she had a voice the recordings of which will thrill listeners far into the future.

The Piano at the Carnival

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Anthony Goldstone (piano)

Piano at the Carnival

TPT: 76’31”

Divine Art dda25075

reviewed by Neville Cohn

Anthony Goldstone is one of the most resourceful pianists currently before the public. He has done wonders over years resurrecting music which, for one reason or another, has fallen into disuse. Indeed, the only tracks here that could be thought of as main stream repertoire are those devoted to Schumann’s Carnival which, of course, is available in umpteen other versions on CD.

It’s the rarities that are the main fascination of this recording.

Sydney Smith’s Fantaisie brillante on Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera, for instance, is claimed as a first ever on record apart from a piano roll made circa 1919. Some might tut tut at its often superficial writing which it would not be inaccurate to describe as frankly cheap salon material – but its sometimes schmaltzy measures are offered with such gusto and brilliance that its inherent shallowness is forgotten for the duration of the performance. And in a first ever recording of Paul Klengel’s arrangement of Dvorak’s Carnival Overture, Goldstone seems positively to relish coming to grips with its many keyboard challenges. He emerges unscathed from this traversing of a treacherous musical landscape with ebullient, admirably buoyant, playing that marshals avalanches of notes with immense flair.

I liked particularly the skill that Goldstone brings to Chopin’s Souvenir de Paganini (The Carnival of Venice), its much loved theme presented in gorgeous filigree terms with fine tonal light and shade, the composer’s idiosyncratic harmonies contributing to most satisfying listening. But an account of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No 9 (The Carnival of Pesth) tends to ramble in a reading where the soloist might to advantage have surrendered more fully to the Muse.

Khatchaturian’s Masquerade Suite is known to millions in its original incarnation for orchestra. Here, Goldstone gives us the premiere recording of Alexander Dolukhanian’s version of the suite for solo piano. Each of the five movements is finely considered with the concluding Galop a particular delight: the playing is informed by immense brio before a brief moment of reflection, then an all-stops-out conclusion at top speed at high decibel levels.

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More Bizarre or baRock

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Elizabeth Anderson (harpsichord) and friends

MOVE CD 3326

reviewed by Neville Cohn

3326

For those who think of the harpsichord exclusively in terms of its repertoire dating back to the pre-piano era, Elizabeth Anderson’s latest compact disc may well prove startling. Certainly, it is one of the most delightfully entertaining recitals on the instrument I’ve heard in a long time.

Some years ago, film fans watching Margaret Rutherford, the first – and most redoubtable  –  incarnations of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple, would have heard its quirky theme music played on a harpsichord which, at that time, was a most unexpected departure from the norm. It brought home the idiosyncratic timbre of the instrument to millions who might never have heard, or even thought about, the harpsichord.

Much of this collection is in this delightfully zany tradition.

Elizabeth Anderson has done much to familiarise listeners with the instrument in unexpected styles, such as Franzpeter Goebels’ Chocolate Boogie, its anarchic measures a clear indication of what is to follow. Anderson seems positively to relish coming to grips with Andrew Koll’s Fuguedelic, after which there is a brief return to what might call stylistic normality with a fine reading of the first of Bach’s 48 Preludes and Fugues. Then it’s back to the bizarre with Templeton’s Bach Goes to Town.

Bach’s arrangement for harpsichord of Vivaldi’s Concerto in D receives first rate treatment by Anderson in a performance which underscores the music’s many dramatic moments. Earl Scruggs’ Foggy Mountain Breakdown calls up images of a boozy hillbilly celebration.

Those who delight in Chopin’s magisterial Polonaises may well find Couperin’s and Telemann’s versions of the dance rather less athletic and intense than those of the Polish master.

Jill Lowe’s baRock is a fine vehicle for Anderson’s virtuosity, especially rapid repeated notes which are played with huge flair. Certainly, the inherent grandeur of the piece comes across splendidly.

One of the most celebrated of all harpsichordists – George Malcolm – wrote a cheeky, insouciant version of the hornpipe and Anderson gives bracing point and meaning to it. Martin Peerson’s Fall of the Leafe, however, can’t hold a candle to Giles Farnaby’s exquisite miniature of the same name.  Purcell’s Round O will be instantly recognised by many as the theme Benjamin Britten used for his Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra tossed off with enviable ease. Ligeti’s Continuum is a little miracle of flawless fingerwork.

Throughout, Anderson’s artistry is complemented by co-musicians Rosie Westbrook, Tony Floyd, Ariel Valent and Ron Nagorka.


Just Classics 2 The Gold Collection

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W.A.Symphony Orchestra

Sara Macliver (soprano)

Fiona Campbell (mezzo soprano)

Benjamin Northey (conductor)

476 3341 Just Classics Gold

ABC Classics 476 3341

TPT: 61’58”

reviewed by Neville Cohn

I can’t recall hearing a finer version of Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man than on this compact disc. Bass drum and tam tam are used to thrilling effect; it’s a perfect overture to the compilation.

Much of the offering consists of much loved classics that are heard time and again on radio or in live performance – but there is not a hint here of familiarity breeding indifference. On the contrary, there is the most appealing freshness to the playing, even in so hackneyed a piece as the Wedding March from Mendelssohn’s incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And in Dvorak’s Furiant No 8, the WASO brass section is very much on its collective toes.

Many of those listening to Respighi’s Bergamasca will recognise it instantly as the theme music for Marian Arnold’s much loved, long running Listeners’ Requests on ABC Classic FM.

Fiona Campbell is in exceptional voice in Mahler’s Ging heut’ Morgen. Producing an immaculate stream of fine mellow vocal tone, Campbell makes magic of this much loved lied. And soprano Sara Macliver is no less persuasive in Song of the Pistachio Harvesters from Ravel’s Five Greek Songs, informed as it is by a most appropriate sense of languor.

Also on disc is Saint Saens’ faux-Oriental Bacchanale from Samson and Delilah; woodwinds are very much on their toes here as in Dance of  the Little Swans from Tchaikowsky’s Swan Lake.

Take a bow, WASO! Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain is given first rate treatment with Benjamin Northey presiding over events to frankly thrilling effect as the score’s satanic revelry is suggested to the nth degree. And the striding motif from the Montagues and Capulets episode from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet fairly sizzles with intensity.

The West Australian Symphony orchestra does not frequently feature on ABC Classics label so this recording is particularly welcome. Certainly, recording engineers Karl Akers and Gavin Fernie have ensured the WASO is heard to very best advantage here; recorded sound is uniformly excellent.


Opera’s Greatest Choruses

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Opera Queensland Chorus

The Queensland Orchestra

Johannes Fritzsch, conductor

ABC Classics ABC 476 3489

TPT: 62’08”

reviewed by Neville Cohn     476 3489 Opera Choruses

choruses from The Magic Flute (Mozart), Fidelio (Beethoven), Boris Godunov (Mussorgsky), Nabucco (Verdi), Il Trovatore (Verdi), Macbeth (Verdi), Aida (Verdi), Lohengrin (Wagner), Pagliacci (Leoncavallo), Cavalleria Rusticana (Mascagni), Madama Butterfly (Puccini), Turandot (Puccini)

Here’s a treasure chest of some of the most loved – and frequently heard – choruses from the opera. But even though many, indeed most, of these tracks have been heard times without number on radio or on CD as well as live on both the concert and opera stages of the world, there’s nothing in the least jaded about these excerpts, not a hint of familiarity breeding indifference. In fact, one of the most appealing features of this compilation is the freshness of the presentation. There’s no hint here of that oh-not-again dullness that sometimes informs performances of music of this sort.

Consider, for instance, the Anvil Chorus from Il Trovatore: how well momentum is maintained here, how full-throated and vital the singing sounds as, from the percussion section of the Queensland Orchestra we hear the unmistakeable, idiosyncratic sound of a beaten anvil. And the hushed poignancy that informs Va’, pensiero from Verdi’s Nabucco could hardly have been bettered.

I particularly liked the Bridal Chorus from Wagner’s Lohengrin in which the singing has a most beguiling freshness backed by most musical, transparent string textures. And there are cheery, sun-filled moments in the Bell Chorus from Pagliacci, the singing backed by some of the compilation’s most meaningful orchestral playing.

Verdi’s Macbeth is represented by the Chorus of the Scottish refugees, with bodeful brass complementing singing that evokes notions of despair beyond despair. And the bloodthirsty cries of the crowd as the chorus watches a hapless prince being led to his death come across strongly in  Turn the Grindstone from Turandot.

Both chorus and orchestra seem positively to relish coming to grips with the Grand March from Aida; it fairly bristles with savage pomp. And in the coronation scene from Boris Godunov, the barbaric splendour of the writing comes across most effectively.