Ralph Vaughan Williams (RVW) (1872 – 1958) is the composer who best captures the elegiac nature of 20th Century English classical music. Unique works featuring flowing melodies, gorgeous harmonies, and with few exceptions (the war-like 4th and 6th Symphonies, among them), gentle flowing rhythms. Pieces like The Lark Ascending, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis and the masterpiece on this recording, Serenade to Music, represent Vaughan Williams at his pastoral best.

This recent release on the Chandos label features four beautiful works by RVW played by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO), conducted by its outgoing maestro, Peter Oundjian. The recording is a commemorative tribute to Oundjian featuring works closely associated with him during his career. 

A delightful, recently released Navona Records CD arrived at the office last week. The latest recording by Brooklyn-based, Serkin-trained pianist Beth Levin called Bright Circle. 

Bright Circle contains masterpieces of Romantic piano literature by Schubert (Sonata No. 20) and Brahms (Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel), and a wonderfully passionate, neo-romantic piece for solo piano, Ode to Music (2015) by American composer David Del Tredici (b. 1937).

Levin has a fluent technique, produces gorgeous tone with refined musicianship and has bold musical ideas. Throughout the album, ‘gumption’ is what came to mind. Levin has her mind set on the musical images and story arc she wants to convey. And with her gifts, it’s a rich listening experience.  

I did not know the Gundula Janowitz version of Strauss’ great final work, Four Last Songs. I owned the performance on just about every format, even cassette, but purchased for the world class performance of Death and Transfiguration, a Side 1 to end all Side 1s. Stupid, I know! 

A favourite of Karajan, Janowitz’ voice has the best of both worlds—as pretty as Kiri and Kathleen with the gravitas and weight of Jesse and Renée. As such, she can float Strauss’ stratospheric demands like a coloratura then dig down for the low register lines with trombone power. All the while interpreting the great German poems by Hesse and von Eichendorff with deep reverence and musicality. 

Whither, the major symphony orchestra concertmaster? If your job is in England, like the London Symphony Orchestra's Roman Simovic, your title is Leader.

For sure, there have been concertmasters of the past that had a solid career outside of their main gig—solo works, chamber music, etc. The best of them could rely on a couple of concerto performances a year, with their own orchestra, or the best of them, with first class ensembles (Boston Symphony's Joseph Silverstein as example). But, for violinists aspiring to be a soloist, the pool of concert appearances is relatively thin. The pool has to accomodate stellar violinists such as Perlman, Mutter, Hilary Hahn, Gil Shaham, and many others. So, for many fine violinists, concertmaster it is. Hey, as we say, 'a gig's a gig'. 

I first heard British violinist Thomas Bowes on a Signum Records release. It was a recording of the Walton and Barber Violin Concertos conducted by the wonderful violinist, Joseph Swensen, with the equally wonderful Malmo Opera Orchestra. Both performance and recording were superb. 

If you know that recording, you will appreciate the art of a very special violinist. Bowes has the technical gifts of many of the virtuosos seen before the public, but he brings much more to his performances than many fiddlers spinning yet another Mendelssohn. There is deep commitment, musicality, and yes, risk. Even on recordings, as heard here on this marvellous new set of CDs from Navona Records, you will thrill at the risks that Bowes attempts, both with tempo and in dynamic range . It makes for an exceptional listening experience. 

This April 2018 DGG release begins with a fine performance of Wagner's Siegfried’s Funeral March, full of gorgeous sonorities and German style from Andris Nelsons' 'other' orchestra, the wonderful Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. As I mentioned in a recent review of Nelsons' Bruckner 4th with this orchestra, the sonorities are just right, the playing very beautiful. The playing, though, for all its beauty lacked a little of the drama that Bruckner legends like Walter, Jochum, Bohm and Klemperer bring to the great composer. So, how do they fare in the beautiful Seventh?

This performance is very much like the 4th, but with even finer playing. The long phrases sound wonderful—huge arching melodies that seem to go on forever.  The block brass fanfares Bruckner loves so much are perfectly in tune and in balance, so much so that 4th horn or 2nd trumpet counterpoint comes through clearly. It's often down in the murk. This recording uncovers everything but in the best acoustic.

A friend in a European orchestra Facebook Messaged me about the qualities of French flutist turned conductor, François-Xavier Roth. The orchestra loved the well-dressed musician's approach and generally pleasant nature. This coupled with expectations of the highest musical standards.

Because of the the FB heads up, I checked out his recent live show with the LSO on YouTube (played on my 55" Sony Bravia 4K TV with a full SONOS system—almost like being there). Wonderful Debussy, Bartok and a superb Bruckner 4th.

Although recent history counts the WDR Orchestra (the ubiquitous radio moniker of many German orchestras) as the top Cologne band, the Gürzenich Orchestra has a long and distinguished history, including giving the first performance in 1904 of Mahler's 5th Symphony. Named after the hall in which it played originally, François-Xavier Roth took over as the orchestra's Music Director in 2015. Sounds like he's building a fine career and bringing some spit and polish to the Cologne musicians. 

If you visit the top vinyl sales websites such as Elusive Disc, Soundstage Direct, Acoustic Sounds among others, the quality vinyl lists are fairly similar. All the familiar suspects—RCAs, Lyritas, EMIs, Mercurys, Blue Notes, Argos, Deccas—populate the must haves. And many fabulous reissues also are cross referenced (Testament, Speakers Corner, Classic Records, etc). 

I’ve been reviewing lots of cartridges and phono stages lately and have been deep diving into my vinyl collection to add a little more spice to the reviewing process. 

Finding the following LPs in their original form may be difficult or expensive (vinyl as an inexpensive medium is long gone). A few, however, are on high quality 180g reissues. 

Several of these LPs I discovered in the collections of other audiophiles. Basically, listen, be gobsmacked, run home like a wounded audiophile and hit Discogs hard 'till the vinyl was found. Some I even found on Amazon. Rest assured, the recordings are superb and the performances fabulous. Just be careful with price/quality ratio of originals if buying on the web. 

Any audiophile worthy of the title knows this album, and the luckiest know it on vinyl. Released in 1993, originally on Morgan Creek Records, Breaking Silence is Janis Ian's most important album. Ian was already famous for her 1975 mega hit At Seventeen. Ian toured through much of her late teens and had some success. At Seventeen opened a lot of doors. New York's Village Voice 'outed' Ian as a lesbian in 1976 and the lyrics on Breaking Silence speak to her feelings about that difficult time as well as challenging subjects such as incest and the Holocaust. 

The songs are beautifully crafted and all feature lovely melodies, interesting harmonies and complex rhythms. Thankfully, not Top Ten, but classic and class all the same. Listening to the album for over 20 years has not dulled its musical and spiritual effect. 

Prokofiev wrote two superb violin concertos, highlighted here in outstanding performances by Georgian superstar violinist Lisa Batiashvili. I'm not sure whose idea it was, soloist, conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin or the bright sparks at DG, but they added three highly musical but aimless fillers and created a 'concept album', Visions of Prokofiev.

So, let's get the fillers out of the way. The three 'hits' plucked from Prokofiev's' ballets and opera are well played and expertly recorded, but are adrift from any musical connections. You'll enjoy them as an aperitif or digestif before, in between or after the two main courses, the concertos. 

By aged 43, I figured Daniel Harding would be at or near the top of the conducting heap—his reputation so well manicured (by a brilliant talent and very close associations with Rattle and Abbado), that a major post in Europe or the US would have been offered by now. A pleasant surprise was the music directorship of the Orchestre de Paris, the rough and tumble band that can, at times, be encouraged to provide top class music making. No happy ending, though. Harding decamped this year after only two years on the job citing, I think, artistic disagreements 'You are a supreme expression of a musical culture that is not mine.'. A nice way of saying I can’t be arsed to fix what's wrong [full statement here]. 

I've heard of other problems on podcasts of his working relations with US orchestras (LA and Chicago, specifically). Yet, through correspondence on social media, the excellent relations with many players of London Symphony as its Principal Guest Conductor, and from concerts I've attended, Harding seems to be a very charming guy as well as a superb musician. 

This is the second release of a projected Bruckner Symphony cycle by one of classical music’s star conductors with his newest orchestra, the vaunted Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig, Germany (named after the hall in which it plays).

The Gewandhaus was for many years under the direction of Kurt Masur, who by title, was the 'General' music director of the entire city. He raised the orchestra's international profile with many fine recordings on Philips. Happily, the 'east' German orchestra did not suffer the same wobbly horn problems that its sister orchestra in Dresden experienced—a hold over from Soviet influence. Masur was asked by the New York Times upon his appointment to the city's Philharmonic, the difference between the Phil and his Leipzig band. 'The New York Philharmonic never makes mistakes. The Gewandhaus sometimes makes mistakes, but what beautiful sounding mistakes'.