• Pianist Melvyn Tan raised a few eyebrows three years ago when, on disc, he turned his attention away from the classical to the Romantic period and began exploring Liszt. He continues that exploration on a new release from Onyx entitled Miroirs, only this time he includes Liszt alongside Weber and Domenico Scarlatti as inspirations for Ravel’s mercurial experiments with the keyboard. It’s a beautifully judged disc, opening with a spectacularly virtuosic performance of Weber’s Invitation to the Dance, which leads perfectly to Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales. Tan’s teacher, Vlado Perlemuter, a pupil of Ravel, knew at first hand that Liszt’s Transcendental etude Feux follets was the direct inspiration for Noctuelles, the first of Ravel’s suite Miroirs, which Tan plays here with a gossamer-light touch, the movements interspersed with their likely inspirations – two Scarlatti sonatas and two examples from Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage suites. An illuminating recording, captivatingly played.
• There’s more captivating playing from violinist Linus Roth on volume 22 in Hyperion’s Romantic Violin Concerto series, a melodic voyage of discovery through works from two Danes, Eduard Lassen and Rued Langgaard, and the Prussian Philipp Scharwenka. Langgard’s is a single-movement piece from 1943, nostalgically recalling an earlier age of compositional innocence. Lassen’s is more muscular, but overflowing with delightful melodies, while Scharwenka’s is the most sweetly pleasing, with a deeply lyrical central andante. Roth plays with almost missionary zeal, he and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, under Antony Hermus, making a convincing case for these works to be more widely performed.
• You still have time to catch Radio 3’s coverage of the 2019 International opera awards on BBC Sounds. There’s some great singing from tenor David Butt Philip and mezzo-soprano Vivica Genaux, and some notable British successes in the prizes, including opera orchestra of the year, awarded to the splendid players of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The ROH also won production of the year with its controversial treatment of Janáček’s From the House of the Dead, while Mark Elder and Opera Rara’s five-star recording of Rossini’s Semiramide – first reviewed here – took disc of the year.
