Local talent on show with ABC’s delightful double of album releases
Two albums showcasing the talents of some of Australia’s finest classical musicians have been released on the ABC Classics label.
Local
Don't miss out on the headlines from Local. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- End of season, end of era
- Paul Kelly up close and personal
- Reach for your headphones
- Songs for the new abnormal
Two albums showcasing the talents of some of Australia’s finest classical musicians have been released on the ABC Classics label.
Ironwood is a Sydney-based ensemble which faithfully reproduces the sound of how the early composers would have heard their music, from the Baroque and Classical eras through to the Romantics.
And it is mid-19th century France that their latest album concentrates on comprising two string quintets, both quite different but both featuring Neal Peres Da Costa playing an 1869 instrument by Parisian piano makers Erard.
The first work is a rediscovered gem by the remarkable Louise Farrenc, a star performer, composer and teacher in her day who fought for and won equal pay as a professor at the Paris Conservatoire. Largely forgotten until the recent surge of interest in the works of female composers, her delightful Piano quintet No. 1 in A minor uses Schubert’s line-up for his Trout Quintet of violin, viola, cello and double bass.
DISTINCTIVE
Although she invokes the spirit of Schubert, and more particularly Mendelssohn, Farrenc has her own distinctive voice and this is high quality French Romantic music. She was taught by Haydn’s friend Anton Reicha and among those who admired her work was Berlioz.
The Farrenc is the perfect companion for the other quintet, Camille Saint-Saens’ Op 14 work which is in the same key. But that’s where the similarity ends for this is a vastly different emotional landscape, often breaking new ground for the time and ending in a beautiful final movement.
The musicians – violinists Rachael Beesley and Robin Wilson, violist Simon Oswell, cellist Daniel Yeadon and Da Costa pay enormous attention to detail and historic performance technique, even sifting through early recordings and piano rolls of Saint-Saens playing to reproduce an authentic experience.
Technically and artistically they are every bit as good as the Grigoryan Brothers
Guitarists Andrew Blanch and Ariel Nurhadi, who have been playing together for five years both as a duo and as a trio with popular Opera Australia baritone Jose Carbo, have released a must-have debut album, Alchemy, which features much-loved works by Debussy, Rameau, Albeniz, Piazzola, Falla and Granados alongside the Alchemy trilogy of guitar duets by the late Australian composer Phillip Houghton.
This is a ripper of an album. Blanch, who has carved out for himself a thriving solo career, is beautifully matched by Nurhadi and the musical chemistry between the pair is something to behold. Their styles are so evenly matched that it is impossible to tell who is playing what. Technically and artistically they are every bit as good as the Grigoryan Brothers and hopefully this is the beginning of a long and exciting recording career.
Highlights are some delightful Rameau pieces, John Williams’ and the late Julian Bream’s arrangement of Debussy’s Cakewalk from Children’s Corner and the completely irresistible Chiquinha Gonzaga Corta Jaca by Brazilian composer Radames Gnattali.
Just the sort of music we need to take our minds off these uncertain times.
Both albums can be bought for $19.95 at Classicsdirect.com.au.