Alexandra Mathew
Alexandra Mathew is from Readings State Library Victoria
Review — 30 Apr 2018
John Adams: Violin Concerto by Leila Josefowicz
Sometimes, when listening to John Adams’s violin concerto, I expected the soaring violin line to continue to rise. It was not so: Adams’s music is full of the unexpected. Although…
Review — 25 Mar 2018
Wayfaring by Umberto Clerici & Karin Schaupp
Wayfaring, a collaboration between Italian-Australian cellist Umberto Clerici and German-Australian guitarist Karin Schaupp, traces a path ‘from birth to death, with everything in between’. Considering repertoire for solo cello…
Review — 25 Mar 2018
Vocalise by Nuria Rial
Heitor Villa-Lobos dreamt up the imaginative combination of eight cellos and soprano soloist. His famous composition for such an ensemble is Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 – part vocalise and part…
Review — 25 Feb 2018
The Verdi Album by Sonya Yoncheva
Sonya Yoncheva’s voice is big and bold and soars above the orchestra like a gloriously voluptuous bird of prey. This young Bulgarian soprano is a principal artist at the Metropolitan…
Review — 25 Feb 2018
After Bach by Brad Mehldau
I come to Brad Mehldau’s latest album After Bach with classical rather than jazz ears. The album is structured around excerpts from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Books I and II…
Review — 23 Jul 2017
Sous l'empire d'Amour by Marie-Claude Chappuis and Luca Pianca
French musicologist Marin Mersenne (1588–1648) declared the French air de cour to be lacking the passion of Italian vocal music. ‘Our French musicians,’ he wrote, ‘are content to flatter the…
Review — 23 Jul 2017
Falla: El Amor Brujo by Euskal Barrokensemble, María José Pérez and Enrike Solinís
Manuel de Falla’s legacy is a study in contradictions. Although Spanish-born, Falla spent seven years in Paris, where he greedily consumed the music of Ravel and Debussy, and marvelled at…
Review — 25 Jun 2017
J.S. Bach: Cantatas for Soprano by Carolyn Sampson
J.S. Bach composed for the voice like he did for a string instrument: highly chromatic, with irregular intervallic leaps, not necessarily taking the human limitations of singing into account. Bach…
Review — 25 Jun 2017
Suite Cubed: Bach and Beyond by Umberto Clerici
Cellist Umberto Clerici wondered how eighteenth-century audiences listened to J.S. Bach’s cello suites, and what they heard and recognised in the music. Although Bach’s solo cello suites are variations of…
Review — 29 May 2017
Bel Canto: The Voice of the Viola by Antoine Tamestit & Cedric Tiberghien
The butt of musicians’ jokes, the viola is often overlooked as a solo instrument. Not quite as high as a violin, and nowhere near as low as the cello, the…