Category Archives: CD

The Silver Swan reviewed by Neville Cohn

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New I Voci Singers
Directed by JOHN CHRISTMASS
JC-2000

The White Swan is a collection of choral miniatures, mainly a capella, sung with the sort of understanding that instantly identifies The New I Voci Singers as a vocal ensemble to be reckoned with. In a variety of styles, in each of which the group sounds entirely at home, this impeccably trained small ensemble responds to direction in a way that many a lesser choral director than the indefatigable and meticulous John Christmass would give eye-teeth to experience. Listen to Dowland’s “Come again!”; it pulsates with vitality and glows with golden sound which makes this frequently performed piece sound fresh and newly minted. Thomas Morley’s “Sing we and chant it” has a splendidly light-toned , buoyant quality, and ceaseless vigilance as to quality of harmonic tissue, which is one of the most crucial yet too-often neglected requirements for fine choral singing. Sound engineer Karl Akers has made the most of Perth Concert Hall’s excellent acoustics.

Maria Callas

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MARIA CALLAS (soprano)
EMI 5674672 (2CD)
TPT: 2:27:54

reviewed by Neville Cohn

EMI has brought out a 2-CD pack devoted to arias sung by Maria Callas, performances which reinforce a long-held view that although not possessed of a classically beautiful voice, Callas, to a degree unequalled and never surpassed, has the ability to convey the dramatic essence of whatever she sings. There is such intensity of expression, so acute a focus on the meaning of what is being sung, that vocal loveliness (for want of a better word), becomes a secondary consideration. Indeed, at times it is almost entirely abandoned as a performing tool in favour of verismo – truth. And whatever one might think of Callas’ vocal qualities – top notes in “Caro Nome” from Verdi’s Rigoletto sound pinched, abrasive and screechy – few, I suggest, would dispute that as a vocal actress, she was without peer. Hauteur, hatred, defiance, fear, vengeance, terror – emotions often reinforced by an underlying current of hysteria – would make Callas’ interpretations rivetting. In “Quelle trine morbide” from Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, for instance, despite ugly top notes, is deeply touching, singing of genuine pathos. And much of a generous 147 minutes – 34 tracks in all – is vintage Callas. For those who seek purity of tone as a listening prerequisite, these are not the CDs for them. But for listeners for whom dramatic truth matters, these performances will satisfy. Time has not dulled these extraordinary interpretations; they are likely to be a long-enduring listening legacy




Lotus Moon- Chinese folk and art songs

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Caccini, Handel, Mozart, Puccini and Gershwin arias

SHU-CHEEN YU (soprano) & ANTONY WALKER (conductor)
Sinfonia Australis
ABC Classics 461 679-2
TPT: 1:07:41

reviewed by Neville Cohn

For those who attended, and fell under the spell of, The Peony Pavilion at last year’s Perth International Arts Festival, a new ABC Classics release on CD could well prove irresistible. Titled Lotus Moon, it’s a compilation of Chinese traditional and art songs and operatic selections with heavy emphasis on Puccini.

The characteristic timbre one associates with classical Chinese opera – high pitched with, for want of better words, a wailing and sometimes nasal quality – is much in evidence in the folk items sung by Shu-Cheen Yu. For ears, such as mine, very much geared to sound in the western tradition, Shu-Chee’s voice, with its idiosyncratic timbre and stratospherically high tessitura, makes for fascinating, almost mesmerising, listening as she sings the songs of her homeland.
Liner notes by Julian Yu and Lyle Chan are helpful – and there are English translations of all the Chinese songs as well as the Italian and German arias. I thoroughly recommend this collection of Chinese songs to anyone who has yet to sample the style and genre. They fall agreeably on the ear, especially Ren Guang’s The Fisherman’s Ballad, gently lulling and suggestive of the composer’s studies in France. And Alumuhan – a traditional song – sounds rather like a tango and, stylistically and melodically, would not seem amiss in a Spanish zarzuela.

The operatic arias are less uniformly satisfying. There is no doubting the seriousness of purpose brought to the performances, all accompanied by Sinfonia Australis conducted by Antony Wallace. At times, one felt the need for rather more opulent vocal tone. But I liked an account of Mozart’s “Ach, ich fuhl’s” from The Magic Flute, its mood of pathos convincingly evoked. There is some sense of strain in Handel’s “Oh! Had I Jubal’s Lyre” but in “Signore, ascolta” from Puccini’s Turandot, Shu-Chee Yu produces a broad, fuller sound and a sometimes rather tremulous line that sounds entirely appropriate.



Concerto Symphonique – Virtuoso Works for Piano and Orchestra

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Volume 1 Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Stojowski, Saint Saens, Litolff

IAN MUNRO (piano) & DAVID PORCELIJN (conductor)
Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra

ABC CLASSICS 465 424-2

reviewed by Neville Cohn

Apart from Litolff’s rather over-exposed “Scherzo” from his Concerto Symphonique No. 4, just about everything else on this CD is refreshingly off the beaten track. Some of it is wafer thin in musical terms but well worth listening to if only to savour Ian Munro’s skill in presenting these musical baubles with immense flair. Mozart’s rarely heard Rondo in A, K386 comes across beautifully, glowing with vitality and musicality. There’s nothing in the least effete or limp-wristed about Munro’s approach to the music of the Salzburg genius; an emphatic, no-nonsense approach to the score makes for bracing listening.

Munro is equally persuasive in Beethoven’s Rondo in B flat, WoO 6. An early work, it would have been a vehicle for the young composer to demonstrate the virtuosity that was his bread and butter before turning to greater things. Munro romps through the score with an ease that reminds one that for sheer facility of finger, few of his compatriots can hold a candle to him on a good day.

For all the virtuosity brought to bear on Stojowski’s Rapsodie Symphonique, one felt that, despite the most skilled needlework, one cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear – and, in musical terms, that is what Stojowski’s opus amounts to. Both soloist and orchestra respond with gusto to Saint Saens’ Rapsodie d’Auvergne, maintaining a spanking pace, with Munro lavishing some quite exquisite tonal light and shade on the notes. Throughout, conductor David Porcelijn and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra provide accompaniments fit for royalty, with Munro occupying the throne with princely authority.