David H Spence
A warm, diaphanous rendition of the Ricercar opened, in which pointed emphasis, as Webern re-scored it, on textural fragmentation therein was understated, even as compared with Dohnanyi’s Cleveland recording fifteen years back. The eleven-minute suite by Ades had pizzazz aplenty in its more orchestral scoring and humorous adaptations of jazz, blues, cabaret, tango, foxtrot; with its clever placements of off-beats within triple meter in the second movement and passage of microtonal decay of other material in a quick finale. The level of inspiration though, even with what all Dohnanyi could do, thins out by suite’s end.Bluebeard’s Castle, no denying Dohnanyi’s authority here, was a qualified success. The color of the Philharmonia strings at the start of it was deep, very warm, but before long into the work, negotiation of contrasts in color, rhythm between episodes of this score, though present, seemed to often hit a plateau or come across as just phlegmatic, glib enough to be insufficient at fully engaging the listener. A whole cache of nuance and expressive effect seemed at nanosecond command from Dohnanyi with NDR and always, so suavely put to most relevant use in their Ravel/Stravinsky/Tchaikovsky prom last year. Such did not seem so clearly present here, most of all I suspect due to substantial loss to depth, character of Philharmonia itself over time. Entry into Bluebeard’s treasury sounded muted, plain to match with the glitter of imagery in the scoring and as the text calls for; the ‘lake of tears’ sounded a little too clean-cut as well, to fully register as such, as though necessary to put a bit of a lid over some of this as well. Such response first became evident in the orchestra’s loud eruptions after Judith’s first demands on Bluebeard not to reject her - this amidst so much groping rumination from mostly the lower reaches of Philharmonia thus far that opened and filled out closing passages of this score so well on this occasion.Charlotte Hellekant’s vocally capable, well-enunciated Judith, ultimately disappointed, albeit that she both started it and sang closing passages quite well. Her gulpy, throatily voiced demands on Bluebeard sound curiously petulant, even pouting at times, enough so that the character of Judith or her mission did not come across as quite single-minded or confident enough to win over any better than the most vacillating or gullible of Bluebeards. His voice occasionally hollowed out a bit, but Falk Struckmann exuded great authority as Bluebeard, whether stern in first greeting Judith and in reluctance to open the doors to his kingdom, or so mysterious and inwardly wracked with guilt as to his past, the romantic antihero in suavely making amorous entreaties to her, the great ancient in unveiling the full glory of his kingdom and authority over it, or full of dread as pressed to coax Judith on a little against deep down his will to meet her demands. One had only to listen to him to grope for what in simplicity and force a little much of the rest of this performance missed.

Babelfish
Was mesmerised by Falk and Judith's perfomance and the vibrant playing of the orchestra. Would love to see it again. Any chance BBC?

Howard "Karmester" Williams, London
This Bluebeard performance was for me sadly unengaging, principally because of the poor Hungarian of both protaganists. The Judit could not even pronounce her husband's name properly, let alone give a credible rendition of the rest of her text. A shame, when one can think of five or six none-Hungarians who would have filled each role more convincingly, not to mention a whole bunch of native speakers. Inexplicable - particularly in view of conductor Dohnanyi's own ethnic roots.

BWV232
The begining of Powder her face is a parody of argentinean tango 'volver' by Carlos Gardel. During the golden age of tango in the 1950's, big orchestras played all the famous tangos in Buenos Aires and other capitals. Ades music is more like 'collages' and it sounds good, but always reminds of bits of music by other composers.