The 19th century saw huge developments in the design of many musical instruments. In some cases changes were adopted more or less universally: the fortepiano that Mozart knew, a five-octave instrument constructed entirely of wood, had by around 1900 grown into the modern grand piano with over seven octaves and a castiron frame. With other instruments, progress was less streamlined. As late as 1865, the natural, valveless horn of Beethoven's time remained the instrument of choice for Brahms when he wrote his famous Horn Trio, and when valves began to be introduced, makers and musicians in Germany, France and Vienna favoured different solutions, offering different results in terms of sound and requiring different playing techniques. The present release is a unique combination of recital and history lesson, with a young British team performing music from between 1800 and 1942 on no less than eight different historic instruments: four horns and four pianos. This gives us the opportunity to hear the works on instruments that the different composers would have recognized, whether Beethoven's Sonata in F major (a natural horn from 1800 and a fortepiano from 1815) or the Villanelle by Paul Dukas from 1906 (an early 20thcentury cor à pistons and a Bechstein from 1898). Both notable performers on modern instruments, Alec FrankGemmill and Alasdair Beatson here revel in the sonic possibilities offered by the historic instruments with results that are as delighting as they are enlightening.

Johan Helmich Roman’s 12 keyboard sonatas, composed c. 1735-37, are veiled in mystery, as it is not known why he wrote them nor what instrument they were intended for. In 1746 he assembled the pieces, each consisting of between three and seven movements, into a single manuscript. They remained unpublished, however, and as Roman did not provide any titles to them, they have since been referred to both as ‘suites’ and ‘sonatas’. Whatever the label, this collection testifies to a period of great stylistic diversity and change, as observed by a composer who remained wide-open to new developments.

These works of Sally Beamish, composed 2003-12, highlight the inspiration she has found in her adopted homeland Scotland and its landscape and history, while also reflecting her interest in jazz and Scottish traditional music. Often collaboration closely with ‘her’ performers, the present disc’s the three concertante works are all played by the eminent soloists for whom they were written: James Crabb, Branford Marsalis and Håkan Hardenberger. Conductor Martyn Brabbins and the RSNO, an ensemble that has performed her works on several occasions, join the former two soloists.

Gripping performances, reported in superb sound.

Mark Wigglesworth’s Shostakovich symphony cycle has been quite a long time in the making – over ten years, in fact – but it’s now nearly complete. I believe the Fifteenth is still to be recorded but this issue should be the penultimate release. We’ve reviewed most of the previous releases – the Fourteenth, one of the earlier releases (BIS-CD-1173) does not seem to have come our way – and each has attracted generally favourable comments. A full set of links to earlier reviews appears at the foot of this review. So far I’ve only heard a couple of the issues in this series, Symphonies Four and Eight.

Over the years when my colleague Dan Morgan and I have listened to the same recordings – including those which he’s reviewed but I haven’t – I found that generally our views have coincided quite a lot. Recently, however, unbeknownst to each other, we wrote simultaneous reviews of Vasily Petrenko’s disc of Shostakovich’s Second and Fifteenth symphonies and found ourselves taking quite different stances. I know that Dan has written admiringly of this latest Wigglesworth issue in its download format so I was intrigued to receive the CD version, though I’ve taken care not to read Dan’s review while preparing my own appraisal. The divergence of opinion over the aforementioned Petrenko release led to some interesting comments on the Message Board so it seemed to me that the arrival of this Wigglesworth CD would be a good opportunity to revisit Petrenko’s accounts of all three symphonies.

One problem for me in approaching this disc is that I’ve never thought very highly of either the Second or Third symphonies and that was reflected in my comments on Petrenko’s recording of the Third and, subsequently, of the Second. Would Mark Wigglesworth make me change my mind? To some extent he has made me more favourably disposed towards the Third though I’m afraid the Second still remains a closed book to me.

Irrespective of any issues about interpretation, I think there are two reasons why Wigglesworth is to be preferred over Petrenko in the Second and Third symphonies. One is that, as we shall see, though the sound on the Naxos discs is pretty good the BIS sound is even better. The other is that Wigglesworth has a clear advantage in using the professional voices of the Netherlands Radio Choir. Petrenko’s Liverpool choir, an amateur body, makes a good showing but the Dutch choir has more punch and their sound is better focused – I’m sure it helps that the choir is smaller than the Liverpool chorus. Naxos does enjoy one advantage, however, which may seem small but which, actually, is quite important: the sung texts are printed in transliterated form whereas BIS offer only the Cyrillic text and an English translation and as most collectors won’t read or speak Russian it’s easier to follow in the Naxos booklet what’s being sung.

The BIS booklet notes are by Mark Wigglesworth himself and he writes insightfully about the music. I was struck by a comment he makes about the First Symphony and the influence of Petrushka and, indirectly, perhaps of Pierrot Lunaire that “the disconcerting idea of human beings as puppets, with their actions manipulated by unseen string-pullers from on high, was one that stayed with the composer right the way through to his final symphony, written almost fifty years later.” In the second movement Wigglesworth’s tempo for the fast music seems very fleet but, in fact, when I compared Petrenko there’s not much to choose between them. In the third movement, however, there is quite a difference: Wigglesworth’s basic pulse is fleeter than Petrenko’s – he takes about a minute less to play the movement – but I don’t think he loses anything thereby in terms of intensity or power; quite the reverse, in fact. This may well be an instance where less means more. In passing, it’s interesting to note that in his much-admired complete cycle Rudolf Barshai is quicker than either of these younger conductors, taking just 7:43. Wigglesworth is excellent in the transition from the third movement to the fourth, bringing out the dark power in the music to perfection. The playing of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra is razor sharp throughout the whole performance and the recording – to which I listened in conventional CD format – is stunning in its immediacy; as an example, listen to the pivotal timpani solo in the finale (track 4, 6:00). I still think the Petrenko performance is a very good one but I think Wigglesworth is even better, digging deeper.

The dynamic range of the BIS recording is such that if one plays the Second Symphony at a level that will be comfortable in the strident passages then the opening is all but inaudible, even when listening through headphones. In fact it’s only after some two minutes have passed that one can really discern what’s happening. That’s not intended as a criticism of BIS, by the way; that’s surely what Shostakovich intended and all credit to Wigglesworth and his orchestra for playing so softly. The RLPO’s playing for Petrenko, while extremely quiet, is not so hushed. BIS splits the symphony into four tracks – on Naxos there are three. Wigglesworth, having started so softly, maintains the mysterious atmosphere very successfully throughout the first section. I start to “lose the plot” with this work when we get to the Meno mosso section (track 7); much of this passage sounds simply chaotic and I can’t shake off the feeling that it’s all sound and fury signifying – well, what does it signify? Wigglesworth scores over Petrenko in having what sounds like a proper siren at the opening of the choral section – and during it; Petrenko uses the option to have the sound played by unison brass instruments. As mentioned above, the Dutch choir has more punch and body to their singing than their Liverpool rivals, valiant though the Merseysiders are.

In his note on the Third Symphony Mark Wigglesworth makes some interesting and important points. He observes that, though the symphony also concludes with a choral setting of a suitably revolutionary text it was not, unlike the Second, an official commission. In other words, the decision to write this work was Shostakovich’s and he himself selected the text that he set at the end. What does this tell us? Well Wigglesworth notes that by now Stalin was in power and, indeed, one of the composer’s own friends – the dedicatee of the First Symphony – had been liquidated. So perhaps Shostakovich was showing himself to be “on message”. However, the poem that he set in the Third Symphony is one that celebrates the revolutionary struggle of the workers rather than revolution and a leader such as Lenin – let alone Stalin – so perhaps, suggests Wigglesworth, Shostakovich is lauding the concept of proletarian revolution rather than the way it had been implemented – and perverted.

Wigglesworth’s recording is divided into seven tracks. He does the opening of this continuous, one-movement work (track 9) very well and after the surface innocence of that section there’s tremendous drive and purpose to the music that follows (tracks 10-11). Here the playing of the Dutch orchestra is very vital. The orchestra also excels in the glacial string episode (track 12) that foreshadows, I think, parts of the Fourth Symphony. Later on the climactic unisons over drum rolls towards the end of track 13 sound very impressive – the BIS recording reports the bass drum thwacks marvellously, so too the baleful tuba solo at the start of track 14. Once again Wigglesworth’s choir makes a splendid showing; I don’t care at all for the music they sing but they deliver the surface excitement with great fervour. This is the most convincing performance of the Third that I’ve heard; even so, I remain sceptical, though slightly less so than before. I note with some interest that Wigglesworth’s overall timing for the symphony is significantly shorter than Petrenko’s; he takes 27:51 against 31:10.

These are gripping performances, reported in superb sound and if you want Shostakovich’s first three symphonies in a package you shouldn’t hesitate. Perhaps it helps that Mark Wigglesworth has recorded these early works almost at the end of his slowly assembled cycle; is he able thereby to refract these scores through his experience of the later works? That must be the case. One question remains: would I have rated Vasily Petrenko’s performances differently had I heard Wigglesworth first? I think the honest answer to that is no. I still think Petrenko’s versions are very good. However, Wigglesworth’s interpretations are presented in superb sound and on balance I think he has the edge interpretatively and in terms of the quality of the singing and playing that he inspires.

-- John Quinn, MusicWeb International

The collaboration between Brett Dean and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra has seen Dean as conductor as well as composer. Dean has become one of this generation’s most performed composers and he often bases his works on literary, visual, or political subjects. This new release includes Dean’s work Shadow Music, which draws on the concepts of the word shadow in its three movements. Also included is Short Stories, which is based around the literary genre in which a condensed form shows a variety of life. Brett Dean is based in Australia, and began his musical career as a violist. He has been much awarded for his compositions, most recently in 2015 he received the Orchestral Work of the Year for his Dramatis Personae.

Dance and Brazilian music are often regarded as more or less synonymous, in the same way that the samba to many of us is Brazilian dance! But the many acclaimed recordings by the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra of symphonic works, tone poems and operas by Villa-Lobos, Camargo Guarnieri and other Brazilian composers, have demonstrated the variety of their national music, and in the same way this disc brings proof of the rich and many-faceted nature of Brazilian dance. Alongside the ubiquitous samba, the batuques, congadas and mourãos included here give us hints of the fascinating universe of regional and ethnic traditions that make up Brazil. It is a fact that dance music, in all its variety, has played an important part in the development of Brazilian art music: as the search for a national identity intensified, Brazilian composers turned to the popular traditions of the cities and countryside for their material. This process began in earnest around 1890 with Alexandre Levy's Samba and Alberto Nepomuceno's Batuque, early examples of a Brazilian art music which draws heavily on the dance rhythms of popular music. Similar cross-fertilization between genres has become a time-honoured tradition, employed by the composers included in this selection and many others. Notable latter-day examples are Antônio 'Tom' Jobim of bossa nova-fame and his Chegada dos Candangos from 1960 and Edino Krieger's Passacaglia for the New Millennium, first performed in December 1999 by the very team that has recorded it here. Roberto Minczuk has previously led the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra in acclaimed performances of Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras on BIS, and here returns with this colourful collection of dances for symphony orchestra.