Three notable albums show depth of Australian musical talent

The homegrown classical music label Move Records has three new notable albums available for those of us who still like to collect CDs.

Zoe Knighton performs works by Clara and Robert Schumann on her new album with pianist Amir Farid.

Cellist Zoe Knighton, a founding member of Melbourne’s excellent Flinders Quartet, is joined by versatile and in-demand pianist Amir Farid for a lovely program of 15 songs by Clara Schumann, in which the cello takes the part of the human voice, followed by three of the six Fantasy Pieces her husband Robert composed for clarinet and piano, and his Five Pieces in the Folk Style.

The couple married in 1840, on the eve of Clara’s 21st birthday, and they composed songs side by side, including Clara’s Six Lieder Op 13, which opens this album. Her Three Poems from Ruckert’s Love Spring came four years later and the Six Songs from Jucunde by Hermann Rollet were written in 1854.

Clara’s career as a composer was beset by problems – not least her gender. “A woman must not desire to compose – there has never yet been one able to do it,” she wrote. She was also one of the most celebrated pianists of her day and had to juggle concert commitments with bearing and raising eight children, as well as dealing with a devoted husband who became increasingly mentally unstable. Her small but exquisite repertoire is only getting its due now through numerous recordings and concert recitals.

This lovely album will give you an idea of her talent which truly stands alongside that of her husband Robert. What Schumann Cello lacks in the human voice is more than made up for by Knighton and Farid’s sensitive and finely nuanced performances. And the liner note includes the texts which is bonus.

Ian Holtham performs a selection of Scarlatti sonatas on four Steinways.

Italian composer Domenico Scarlatti composed an amazing 555 keyboard sonatas – most of them while he was in the pay of the Spanish court in Madrid. It would take years and 30 CDs to record the whole collection, but instead Melbourne pianist and composer Ian Holtham chooses 23 of them for his latest album.

Interestingly he places them into four tonal groupings and then performs them on four of Melbourne Conservatorium’s Steinway grands – each with its own character. Holtham knows these instruments well as he has been head of piano performance at the Con for 22 years – hence his decision to choose 22 of Scarlatti’s sonatas. The 23rd is a dazzling bonus track, the finger-breaking Sonata in D Major K435.

Scarlatti’s Steinways is an entertaining and informative double disc set. Holtham’s recording career has spanned three decades and he brings to this wonderful and uplifting music a keen insight as well as a deft and impeccable touch.

Album artwork for Liquid Crystal with Luke Carbon and Alex Raineri.

Also out on Move Records is Liquid Crystal, a “mixtape” of music for clarinet and piano featuring woodwind multi-instrumentalist Luke Carbon and Alex Raineri, which starts with a masterly performance of Brahms’s Sonata No 1 in F minor and culminates in the title track, a virtuosic contemporary work by Australian composer Elliott Gyger which the duo first performed together after getting together at the 2017 Bendigo Music Festival.

Along the way we get four short pieces by Alban Berg, Carbon’s arrangement of Amy Beach’s lovely Romance for Violin and Piano and Leonard Bernstein’s Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, written in 1941 and his first published composition.

All in all it’s an attractive package featuring two fine and adventurous musicians.

All three albums as available as CDs for $25 and can be purchased online through Buywell Music or the Australian Music Centre. Schumann Cello and Liquid Crystal are also available for download and streaming.