So impressive. Janine Jansen essentially strips these pieces of all the years of what one might call ‘performance adornment’ and takes them back to their elemental roots. From Mäkelä and the Oslo Philharmonic the shimmer at the start…

There is liberation in the timelessness of these songs and settings, be they old or brand new. And timelessness is what makes this quirky and haunting collection – a tapestry, if you like, of protest – memorable.…

Elfman’s Concerto for Orchestra Wunderkammer was written for the National Youth Orchestra and clearly designed to stretch and stimulate young imaginations – to say nothing of techniques. It’s a kind of Rubik Cube of orchestral possibilities. The…

A near perfect combo of works spanning the length and breadth of Carl Nielsen’s life’s work. The tone poem Pan and Syrinx should rightly come between the two big works but it makes for an impressionable curtain…

I’ve always admired the modesty and truthfulness of James Ehnes as a player – and you can hear that modesty at work in Phaedrus’ opening address from the Bernstein Serenade. There’s an unfussy directness about it that…

Bartok was never fully content with The Wooden Prince and this final revision marks an end to his tinkering. It is significant, I think, that all his trimming has to do with music explicitly related to stage…