1. OSVALDO GILOJOV, Yiddishbbuk and other works. St Lawrence String Quartet with Todd Palmer (clarinets) (EMI 5 57356 2).
Fasten your seatbelts. This young Argentinian tosses you through a wild spin of Jewish kletzmer style in The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind. For all its killjoy title, this is kletzmer on steroids. It needs a folk-trained clarinettist who can rough it up with the whole range from bass clarinet to the Eb piccolo, and change them on the run. This is my year’s most intoxicating listen. Its 37-minute length passes quickly. The poignant Yiddish-bbuk sets a tragic tale in the Jewish Holocaust, tango ambiences in Last Round for string nonet commemorate the death of Piazzolla, and gypsy style predominates in Lullaby and Doina. But Dreams and Prayers upstages all.
2. YUNDI LI, Liszt Sonata in B minor and other works (DG 471 585-2).
This Chinese pianist wunderkind gives me the year’s most deeply satisfying recital disc. For a 20-year-old, his insight into Liszt’s profound Sonata, with its intricate network of thematic transformations, is astonishing. In addition to brains, he clearly has dramatic power and poetic sensitivity in the quieter moments. He charms you with his five elegantly wrought lightweight items, too.
3. DAVID FARQUHAR, Half a Century of Song. (Kiwi-Pacific CD SLD112).
This collection of six song cycles is where Farquhar’s true heart is. Depiction of mood and fine detail in word painting are unfailingly sensitive across a wide range of texts from Blake to E E Cummings – you won’t find a more finely wrought songwriter in the country. It brings to the fore a composer unjustly overshadowed by Lilburn in past years.
4. JOHN PSATHAS, Fragments (MMT 2047).
Recent lunch conversation. Me: “Psathas seems the best of our young composers.” Conductor: “Delete ‘young’ and I’d agree.” Exaggeration or not, this Wellingtonian is on a roll nationally and overseas. Everything is top drawer in this disc of mostly piano-percussion works. They follow on logically from his excellent Rhythm Spike, which won the NZ Classical CD of the year in 2000. One concern for his future: I hope he broadens out beyond his frequent piano-percussion combo. Other local composers are following him.
5. CHRISTOPHER BLAKE, Symphony – The Islands. NZSO (Atoll ACD 403).
Blake’s three shorter tone poems are lesser foothills to this massive 43-minute symphony. He’s a naturally expansive thinker, and that makes him an ideal symphonist. The best entry point is the simpler slow movement; be patient with the outer two, though. Here, Blake’s sophisticated thematic discourse will take you two or three hearings to get right inside them. Do that, and you have a masterpiece on your hands – one of the greatest symphonic landscapes since Lilburn’s Symphony No 2 of 1951.
6. RUSSIAN NATIONAL ORCHESTRA, Prokofiev and Rachmaninov third piano concerti (DG 471 576-2).
Pianist Mikhail Pletnev has the perfect crisp toccata playing for the lean, athletic Prokofiev, and neatness in cutting through the elephantine chordal bravura of the obese Rachmaninov. He and Rostropovich are in perfect sync with interpretative viewpoints, too. The year’s best concerto CD.
7. KATHLEEN FERRIER, A Tribute. (Decca 2CD 475 078-2).
Even 50 years after her death, listeners still highly value this rich contralto voice. Decca’s 39 tracks profile her career accurately – strong in German Lieder, light and elegant in British folksong, but lumbering and sugary in Baroque oratorio. Well, that’s how they sang Baroque arias back then. With archive issues, you must accept the good with the dated.
8. EDWIN CARR, Orchestral Works. (Kiwi Pacific SLD 111).
Frankly, this and the John Ritchie CD below don’t stretch my imagination as deeply as the Farquhar, Psathas and Blake issues above. But they’re a good cross-section from two of our senior composers. This one was completed just before Carr’s death on Waiheke Island this year. What gets it into the top 10 is his major work Piano Concerto No 2. Its springy Prokofievian wit and transparent orchestral scoring give it immediate appeal. End of the Golden Weather and Seven Elizabethan Lyrics are melodically endearing, if glibly so in the latter.
9. JOHN RITCHIE, Aquarius. NZSO and NZSO Chamber Orchestra. (MMT 2040).
Conservative, yes, but there’s gut honesty to the unpretentious geniality of these orchestral works – Clarinet Concertino and Suites one and two for strings. The odd twists and turns to Ritchie’s melodic lines, harmony and key changes keep predictability at bay. His popular streetscape Papanui Road Overture turns up like a bad (or good) penny, depending on your taste. All non-elitist fare from someone who doesn’t give a stuff about modernism.
10. BRIDGET DOUGLAS AND RACHEL THOMSON, Syrinx. (MMT2039).
NZSO principal flutist Bridget Douglas and pianist Rachel Thomson avoid the name sonatas of Bach, Prokofiev and Poulenc in favour of the rewarding Gallic fringes of Gaubert, Debussy, Roussel, Ravel, Mouquet and Jacques Charpentier (a pupil of Messiaen). Douglas’s mellow tone in low registers is magical for Debussy’s Bilitis and Syrinx; the flamboyance in Mouquet’s Sonata allows her to open out without harshness and with impeccable breath control. All works are sensuous and undemanding – the perfect dinner by candlelight companion.