Orchestral
CD and Other Review

Review: Shostakovich: Violin Concertos (Tetzlaff)

Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto is, more or less, in the mainstream but, I have to confess, I’d actually forgotten that he actually wrote a second! Tetzlaff is up with the best in virtually anything he does and his performance and interpretation is very fine. My favourite movement is always the introductory Nocturne, with its sinuous (and in this case sinewy theme). The two even numbered movements provide colour and movement with all the deliberately sinister overtones of forced hilarity and rejoicing they always convey in Shostakovich’s scores. Tetzlaff is alive to every nuance here. In the great Passacaglia, the work’s center of gravity, he is genuinely moving with rock steady tone and dignified phrasing. Of course David Oistrakh, for whom both works were written, casts an eternally long shadow. Nonetheless, Tetzlaff is eminently recommendable. The Second Concerto was composed in 1966 and is a very different kettle of fish. More sparsely orchestrated, it consists of mainly slow music until the last minutes. The first movement has the sphinx-like inscrutability common to many Shostakovich late scores and the second tends to meander. Tetzlaff is impressive here, but it’s not surprising the work features rarely in concert. Ondine’s sound, Storgårds’ conducting and……

March 21, 2015
Orchestral
CD and Other Review

Review: Phase 4 Concert Stereo (Various)

The Decca Phase 4 label began as part of London Records, Decca’s American branch, to specialise in sonic spectaculars. The opposite of Mercury, which employed two microphones, the Phase 4 engineers multi-miked orchestras and highlighted instruments and sections at the mixing desk. From 1964 to 1978 they recorded classical music, often hiring famous but neglected conductors. This anthology gives a wide cross section, from Robert Merrill singing American patriotic songs with soupy arrangements, to Paco Peña’s flamenco guitar, to Orff’s Carmina Burana. Much is no longer popular, nor does it have the ‘cool’ factor to warrant a revival. Stokowski conducts Berlioz, Russian music and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons at the end of his career, but is far better served by his 1950s EMI recordings. (His best Phase 4 disc, coupling Ives and Messiaen, is absent!) Stokowski’s Beethoven 9, along with Leinsdorf’s Mahler 1 and Doráti’s New World Symphony are comparatively successful, while Stanley Black is a good conductor of light music. The most interesting recordings are of Herrmann and Rósza conducting their film scores, but these are more extensively covered in Eloquence editions. Decca’s English executives pooh-poohed the Phase 4 sonics, and they were right. The sound is dry, unnaturally close,…

March 15, 2015
Orchestral
CD and Other Review

Review: Vivaldi: The Four Seasons (Rutter)

Vivaldi’s most famous work readily lends itself to being performed on flute or recorder, the instruments’ pastoral and avian associations making them a natural fit for these bucolic tone poems overflowing with evocations of birdsong, peasant dances and storms. Jane Rutter and Sinfonia Australis take a hybrid approach, combining modern flute with a small period band under the brilliant Erin Helyard conducting from the harpsichord. Many of the players are Brandenburg Orchestra regulars, including Matt Bruce, Kirsty McCahon and Tommie Andersson on theorbo. The argument thus becomes less about authenticity per se and more about marrying an appropriate period style to an anachronistic tonal palette. Fortunately, it works a treat. Adopting a flexible approach to pulse and tempo throughout – both qualities can be heard right from the outset in Spring – Rutter steers a middle course between highly articulated declamation and floating lyricism in the midst of Sinfonia Australis’ sharply drawn yet delicately rendered sylvan landscapes. Of the two works included which Vivaldi actually did write for flute, the ever-popular Concerto in D Minor RV428 “Il gardellino” and the Concerto in G Minor “La notte”, Rutter uses a 19th-century instrument with an ebony joint for the latter. The sound…

March 13, 2015
Orchestral
CD and Other Review

Review: Haydn: Piano Concertos (Bavouzet)

No other composer, in my experience, had such a warm and simple character (but a multi-faceted musical personality) as Joseph Haydn. Widely contrasting elements of Rococo delicacy and sturdiness combine with exuberance and melancholy, seriousness and wit, forcefulness and elegance. However, unlike Mozart, Haydn’s only concertos to have fared well are the two cello concertos (one discovered relatively recently) and his trumpet concerto. Neither the violin nor the keyboard concertos have entered the Haydn ‘canon’. In the case of the keyboard concertos, it’s not for want of distinguished advocacy: In the mid ‘70s, Michelangeli (of all people ) recorded two with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra under Edmund de Stoutz and, more recently, pianists of the calibre of Andsnes and Hamelin have essayed their considerable charms, with impressive and persuasive results. Now, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet has interrupted his Haydn Sonata cycle with three genuine concertos ie. the three without textural or chronological ambiguity to cast doubt on their authenticity. Bavouzet has been around for a while but recently he’s entered the “Is there anything this guy can’t do?” stratosphere with an acclaimed Beethoven Sonata cycle, an award winning Prokofiev Concerto cycle, Debussy, and miraculous Ravel, as heard in his Sydney recital last…

March 10, 2015