Fine neglected orchestral fare, but is it a masterpiece?

Ashkenazy's Shostakovich tribute with violinist Ray Chen reached an unforgettable incandescence.

Freire spans Brahms' keyboard output from go to whoa.

Gringolts nails Stravinsky's sometimes knotty violin output.

Fischer and his Hungarians offer us a Mahler Three to live with.

Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic have set new standards in these performances with the wind breathtakingly behind their virtuosic wings.

Storgårds and the BBC Phil do this never less than fascinating music proud.

Schumann’s Humoreske and Davidsbündlertänze are hard nuts to crack. They both reveal Schumann at his most ruminative and discursive. The Humoreske is one of Schumann’s kaleidoscopic “mood” pieces – much more than the salonistic bagatelles of Grieg and Dvořák. Schumann lamented the absence of a French word for whimsy, which is what this piece is about, as much as anything. Buratto plays beautifully but at times a bit anonymously. Compare Horowitz’s recording (made when he was 76) where there’s more animation and imagination. The Davidsbündlertänze (David’s Club Dances) were another celebration of the inspiration of Schumann’s imaginary world and his bi-polar muses and the foundation members and twin pillars of the “club”: Florestan, active, adventurous, heroic, and Eusibius, contemplative and introverted. (David triumphed over the Philistines: i.e. the composer’s conservative critics.)The 18-section work, another love letter to Clara, presents challenges in terms of cohesion. There’s a subtle connective tissue but it would be missed by most listeners. Many of these “dances” are hardly terpsichoral but Buratto has, for the most part, their mutli-faceted measure, from the frenetic bursts of enery to the quintessential Schumann reverie. The centrepiece is the exquisite Blumenstück. Here, Buratto is equally exquisite, though not yet in…

Polished Bruckner and beatific Beethoven from Simone Young and the SSO.

This Bruckner Three augurs well for what I hope will be a complete Bruckner symphonic cycle. The Third is, with the Second, probably the most tinkered with. The best performance of this work I’ve ever heard was with this very orchestra under Kurt Sanderling on an Electrola LP. This orchestra has just the right Teutonic heft but, in the hands of Nelsons, assumes a real finesse (influenced by his work with the Boston Symphony?) in the softer Gesangsperioden (lyrical passages). For Bruckner anoraks, this is the 1889 version, described somewhat fancifully by one critic as the “Wham, bam, thank you ma’am” one, a sentiment one doubts the resolutely chaste composer ever experienced. Bruckner was far, at this stage, from exploring, consciously or otherwise, the pyschological undercurrents apparent in the Eighth and Ninth symphonies. Nelsons’ take has neither the (impressive) tempo  idiosyncrasies of Jochum, nor the glamorised sheen and sleek legato of Karajan, nor yet the craggy implacability of Klemperer. The great recording producer Walter Legge, once said that Moghul architecture was monumental but finished with the lapidary detail of a jewel – something that all successful Bruckner conductors always achieve. Nelsons is aware of the need to… Continue reading Get…

A mature work, still beguilingly beautiful after all these years.

These recordings are not without poetry – it’s just that there’s not enough of it.