CD Reviews
CLAUDE MONET: THE MAGIC GARDEN Various artists Music by Debussy, Ravel, Fauré, Satie and Saint-Saëns ABC Classics 351414
✶✶✶ HUSHABYE Hayley Westenra, soprano Decca 4810351
✶✶✶ The last time I listened to a CD featuring New Zealand-born Hayley Westenra was when she sang opposite Italian tenor Vittorio Grigolo in yet another version of Bernstein’s West Side Story. That was about six or so years ago and I remember mentioning at the time that if Pavarotti’s voice could be calibrated as a sixcylinder voice then Westenra’s voice would reasonably be expected to score no more than one. That was then and little has changed since except that on this album she has forsaken
BACHCAGE - FRANCESCO TRISTANO Deutsche Grammaphon 0289 476 417-3 5
✶✶✶✶ 16
fineMusic 102.5
September 2013
This beautiful compilation of essential French Impressionist music brings together some of the best-loved classics of the genre. It covers a range of quintessentially French composers from Fauré and Saint-Saëns to Debussy, Ravel and Satie. This ABC release also showcases some fine local talent featuring the sparkling virtuosity of pianist Anna Goldsworthy playing Ravel’s Jeux d’eau as well as Stephanie McCallum’s sensitive performance of Satie’s otherworldly Gymnopédie No. 1. Cellist Janis Laurs gives a musical interpretation of Saint-Saëns’ heartbreakingly beautiful The Swan and the legendary Roger Woodward displays his technical prowess in a brilliant performance of Debussy’s Gardens in the
Rain. The CD offers some truly high-quality performances by Australian orchestras including the Adelaide and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, culminating with a marvellous Sydney Symphony rendition of The Fairy Garden from Ravel’s Mother Goose conducted by Benjamin Northey. As suggested by its title, Claude Monet: The Magic Garden would make a great companion CD to the current Monet’s Garden exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. It would also make the perfect soundtrack to a relaxing Sunday afternoon, allowing you to fully immerse yourself in pure and exquisite French music. - Claire Hu
her pure, almost ethereal, sound for one that doesn’t sound anything like her real self. Admittedly, here she is not singing anything remotely classical (except for a popped-up version of “Brahms’ Lullaby” and “All Through the Night”) but, me-thinks she has been coaxed into sounding not only commercially viable but also vampish. Whereas her voice was once pleasant, it now whimpers along with the odd whisper here and there, whereas it was direct and listenable it is now poutish and breathy, and whereas it once had potential it now sounds like Eartha Kitt on the prowl. Need I go on? One can excuse one or two seductively- best that I can say about this CD of sleepy-by voiced songs but to then continue in that vein themed songs is that it has the desired effect. over 13 tracks asks too much of a listener. The - Randolph Magri-Overend Taking cues from the concisely useful write-up that comes with this CD, Bach and Cage win significance for no other reason than both being four-letter names, with acknowledgement to Bach as being “the first composer”, and Cage “the last”. It is an acknowledgement that our host, Francesco Tristano, proceeds to put to the test. He exploits the potential of electronics to do more or less whatever a musician may want by way of presenting something far removed from what we are used to hearing in the genre of piano recitals. The effects of such extreme precision as we hear in this recording would be unattainable outside a fully equipped modern studio. Every note is picked and struck as if it belongs in a tonal world all of its own, then reassembled in such a way that provokes us, in the words of the CD booklet,
“to listen and hear anew”. The results of this exhibition of music are the equivalent of Old Masters hung in a gallery. Effects range from the most delicate intimations of sound, down to the deepest thunderings that postproduction techniques can generate. From Bach through to Cage, Tristano in his newly-conferred role as “curator” forces us to alter our sense of what is conventional, and comfortable, what comes first, and what comes last. He juxtaposes the sudden startling modernity of Baroque compositions, given Loussier-esque treatment, with timely musical punctuations by the moderns here, Cage and the pianist himself. A most finely executed experiment that may not impress everyone, but the people it does impress will be glad to have found it. - Phil Vendy