REVIEWS orchestral orchestral REVIEWS

dying composer in a Bollywood film minded Francesca I’ve ever heard, Philharmonic are thoroughly high spirits: The that didn’t happen, and surprisingly spaciously avoiding whirlwind committed. Christopher Dingle REISSUES HHHH Trondheim Soloists serious in tone until it goes over the overkill and dynamically alert in a performance Reviewed by Jessica Duchen play spirited folk top in a choral apotheosis. studied but affecting remembrance recording HHHH It’s all well played by the versatile of happier times. On the first disc, chopin • Schumann Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra Tchaikovsky’s String Serenade, under the composer, with committed tchaikovsky following Romeo and Juliet, plays Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2; Schumann: Piano Concerto contributions from the veteran bassist Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture; a similar role to the quintets. Louis Lortie (piano); Philharmonia Gary Karr and the outstanding Serenade for Strings; Francesca da Christoph Eschenbach’s approach to Orchestra/Neeme Järvi violinist Philippe Quint, and clearly Rimini, Symphonic Fantasy the Serenade is big and sumptuous Chandos CHAN 10603 X (1992) 62:27 mins recorded. Anthony Burton ewald with symphonic strings, rather than BBC Music Direct £7.99 performance HHHH light and fleet with a small ensemble. Brass Quintets Nos 1 & 3 weinberg A very rewarding recording HHHH Philadelphia Orchestra/ The breadth of his Romeo doesn’t listen, with beautiful Christoph Eschenbach always work as well as his Francesca, Symphonies Nos 1 & 7 touch from Louis Ondine ODE 1150-2D 113:46 mins (2 discs) but he does hit the heights of the Erik Risberg (harsichord); Gothenburg Lortie. Neeme Järvi BBC Music Direct £15.99 love theme with aristocratic aplomb Symphony Orchestra/Thord Svedlund controls a halo of Never heard of Victor Ewald? Don’t and he always reminds you what a Chandos CHSA 5078 (hybrid CD/SACD) whisper-soft strings in the Chopin. worry; neither had I. Nor, it seems, fabulously organised symphonic 69:23 mins Slightly erratic rubato in Schumann, BBC Music Direct £12.99 had Russophiles writing around the movement this is. David Nice but the Chopin is a triumph. HHHH turn of the 19th and 20th centuries performance Mieczys√aw Weinberg’s First Performance HHHHH when Ewald balanced his talents as (quintets, francesca) HHHHH Symphony was written in Tashkent Recording r strauss • webern civil engineering professor, cellist in (the rest) HHHH in 1942, three years after the young Dohnányi R Strauss; Ein Heldenleben; the Beliaeff Quartet and composer. recording HHHHH composer had sought refuge in the Webern: Im Sommerwind Brass players may be grateful for the Soviet Union escaping from Nazi Piano Concertos Nos 1 & 2 Chicago SO/Bernard Haitink two quintets here, which are an easy- persecution in his native Poland. Howard Shelley (piano); CSO Resound CSOR 901 1004 BBC Philharmonic/Mathias Bamert going delight, bound to encourage It was dedicated to the Red Army Chandos CHAN 10599 X (2002/04) (hybrid CD/SACD) 62:32 mins spot-the-influence games. No. 1 in as a defiant token of gratitude to BBC Music Direct £13.99 72:25 mins B flat minor of circa 1890 starts with the soldiers whose stalwart actions BBC Music Direct £7.99 In these live performances from 2008, Russian folksong treatment, goes against the German aggressors had Too rarely heard Bernard Haitink directs a Heldenleben on to sound like early Strauss and helped to save the composer’s life. concertos: way-out full of excellent qualities, yet not turns Borodinesque in a 5/4 scherzo Yet although militaristic elements stuff at times, mixing quite so spellbinding or charismatic (another one to challenge those who vieuxtemps are certainly present in the central grand virtuosity, as Norway’s most musical folk as Reiner’s. The way he delineates say Tchaikovsky got there first in the Violin Concertos Nos 4 & 5; section of the first movement and in befitted Liszt’s fellow Strauss’s polyphony is very impressive, Pathétique). No. 3 in D flat follows Fantasia appassionata, Op. 35 the rather stolid finale, this largely countryman, with immense melodic Christopher Dingle enjoys the latest two Blu-ray audio releases bringing out the counterpoints and the ruling Russian symphonist Viviane Hagner (violin); Royal Flemish accomplished work encompasses generosity. And for Shelley, it’s an subsidiary voices with nothing short in 1912, Glazunov, and boasts an Philharmonic/Martyn Brabbins a much wider emotional palette utterly jaw-dropping tour de force. immersed in the music in surround support under Ole Kristian Ruud, of exemplary clarity. The orchestral exuberant finale. Trumpeter David Hyperion CDA 67798 66:40 mins including a lyrically reflective Lento Performance HHHHH BBC Music Direct £12.99 sound. As with earlier 2L sets, there and the only caveat being that there sound is magnificent in SACD, quite Bilger sings gloriously in the First as well as propulsive and ironic Recording HHHHH are two discs, one with blu-ray could occasionally be a little more stunning in the battle-sequence. Yet Quintet’s slow movement. When Hyperion’s Romantic Violin scherzo. Stylistically the Symphony audio, the other a hybrid SACD. drive. Among the accompanying there is something rather ponderous The brass divertimentos provide Concerto series was first planned, the draws upon an intriguing blend of Brahms The music of virtuoso violinist shorter works, the miniature that about the enunciation of the vaunting, light relief after the most serious- name of Vieuxtemps must have been influences ranging from Prokofiev in Piano Concertos Nos 1 & 2, Ballades, and composer Ole Bull will be new opens the set, Saeterjentens Søndag, youthful opening theme; the gaggle of one of the first on the list. In the mid- the contours of the opening melodic Op. 10, Klavierstücke, Op. 76 to many outside Norway, but he was are especially sublime. enemies sounds altogether too good- 19th century he took on Paganini’s idea to Mahler in the serenity and Stephen Kovacevich (piano); London BACKGROUND TO… Symphony Orchestra/Colin Davis a major figure in the 19th century. The same could be said of the new mannered; and for me, at least, the mantle of ‘greatest living violinist’, poise of the slow movement, while Newton 8802010 (1979-85) 147:54 mins bull Born in 1810, he was lauded across disc from the Trondheim Soloists, love-music and the glowing rhetoric Ole Bull and trod the same path of virtuoso- the scherzo breathes a similar air to BBC Music Direct £12.99 (2 discs) Europe by figures such as Berlioz, In Folk Style, though it opens with of ‘The Hero’s Works of Peace’ do not composer. Since his focus was the the scherzo of Shostakovich’s Sixth. (1810-80) Kovacevich is on fire Saeterjentens Søndag; Violin Schumann and Liszt for his ability to more familiar fare, in the guise of touch the heart. Considered overall it’s violin (occasionally the viola), his By the time Weinberg composed in these recordings. Concerto in A; Concerto Fantastico; combine exceptional technique with Grieg’s Holberg Suite and Two Nordic a fine performance, but not one to set Bull was one works have struggled to retain his Seventh Symphony for Rudolf Visceral, inspired, I Ensomme Stunde; La Verbena de emotional insight. The major works Melodies. As with their stunning aside, say, Karajan’s 1983 rendering the same prominence as those of Barshai’s Moscow Chamber spiritual and sensual, San Juan; Et Saeterbesøg of the greatest here are Bull’s two violin concertos, Divertimento disc, the Trondheim with the Berlin Philharmonic (DG), violinists composers who cast their nets more Orchestra in the mid-1960s he had his Brahms balances Annar Follesø (violin); Norwegian Radio widely. This is a pity, as they on the edge, yet reaches profound Orchestra/Ole Kristian Ruud Soloists possess great energy and a or indeed Reiner’s from half a century of the 19th developed a much stronger musical ago (RCA) – or, to cite a more recent are every bit as rewarding as the identity. Imaginatively scored for repose for slow movements. 2L 2L-067-SABD (hybrid CD/SACD; The Trondheim Soloists full-blooded sound, though there century and a is no lack of poetry or beauty. The version, Christian Thielemann’s handful of old war-horses that solo harpsichord and strings, this Performance HHHHH plus Blu-ray: 7.1 dts) 69:16 mins (2 discs) central figure possess energy and a ‘Air’ of the Holberg Suite might stunning rendition with the Vienna dominate the repertoire of many haunting work – conceived as an Recording HHHH in folk style in Norway’s musical life. He full-blooded sound have had a touch more fluidity, Philharmonic (DG). of today’s violinists. unbroken sequence of five movements Grieg: Holberg Suite; Two but its ‘Rigaudon’ is quite simply An unexpected coupling, Webern’s mastered the violin well before Of the two concertos presented – culminates in a compelling chopin Nordic Melodies, Op. 63; his tenth birthday to the extent which have only recently been joyous, as are the new orchestral youthful, gorgeous Im Sommerwind here, the Fourth shows the influence finale that is particularly notable Piano Concertos Nos 1 & 2; 4 Ballades; Amper: Abrégé – folk suite for rediscovered. Like the works of some folk suites, Diplom and Abrégé. The is the reflective foil to Strauss’s that the statutes of the Bergen of Beethoven and is, as Berlioz for employing a wide array of eerie Barcarolle in F sharp, Op. 60 etc nyckelharpa and string orchestra; other virtuoso performer composers, former features Gjermund Larsen’s action man, and paradoxically it’s Harmonic Society were altered to observed, virtually a symphony with instrumental effects. Jorge Bolet (piano); Orchestre Larsen: Diplom – folk suite for allow so young a musician to join Symphonique de Montréal/Dutoit they are rather episodic in nature, fiddle playing, while Abrégé is an this that makes the disc very well violin solo. It is also a work of some Following on from his successful Newton 8802008 (1989) 136:50mins fiddle and string orchestra the orchestra. Widely travelled, Geir Inge Lotsberg (violin); but it is clear that Bull had a keen arrangement by Johannes Leonard worth acquiring. Haitink renders daring that may have given Bruch an disc of the composer’s Concertos, BBC Music Direct £12.99 (2 discs) Trondheim Soloists/Oyvind Gimse melodic gift, as well as exceptional Rusten of pieces by Emilia Amper a performance of great dignity and he was especially popular in the idea or two, though arguably makes Thord Svedlund and the Gothenburg A mixed bag, or 2L 2L-068-SABD (hybrid CD/SACD; plus mastery of the violin, including featuring her on nyckelharpa, a type tenderness, a vision of the Romantic US where, as Bull said, he was ‘an better use of them. The lyricism of Symphony Orchestra deliver maybe an acquired Blu-ray: 7.1 dts) 57:23 mins (2 discs) four-part writing. Annar Follesø of fiddle with chromatic keyboard. tone-poet Webern could have become adopted son’. Bull was responsible Fifth Concerto is more pervasive, exemplary performances of both taste: Bolet’s Chopin BBC Music Direct £24.99 (each) does a sterling job of bringing these Unless you have a pathological had not fate (and Schoenberg) taken for recognising the young Grieg’s with the movements running works. Supported by outstanding playing has some Two more intriguing releases of works vibrantly to life, with barely aversion to modern folk music, then a hand. Haitink achieves the feat of talent and persuading the boy’s together in the manner of Liszt’s First sound, this release can be confidently stunning moments Norwegian repertoire from the a blemish in his beautiful bel canto this is infectious, even if it leaves the investing it with the aura of at least a parents to send him to the Piano Concerto. Viviane Hagner recommended to those who enjoyed of eloquence, but sometimes longs gett y marvellously inventive 2L label. tone despite the numerous leaps into Grieg feeling like a distant dream. near-masterpiece. Calum MacDonald Leipzig Conservatory. Grieg, in is a marvellous exponent of both Chandos’s other fine discs of for a more fleet-fingered facility. Both offer exceptional recorded the stratosphere. The Norwegian performance (both) HHHH performance (strauss) HHHH gratitude, dedicated his first set works, as she is in the more overt Weinberg’s Symphonies. Erik Levi Performance HHH adde , sound, with the listener being truly Radio Orchestra gives excellent recording (both) HHHHH (webern) HHHHH technical show piece of the Fantasia performance HHHH Recording HHHH rn of folksong arrangements to Bull. Ø j recording HHHHH appassionata. The Royal Flemish recording HHHHH

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