Classical Music

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A beautifully recorded and played recital of works for flute and orchestra, of which just the Nielsen concerto is a necessary purchase.

One has to question the marketing mind who chose the title Great works for flute and orchestra. There can be no question that the Nielsen concerto is a great work. The rest are enjoyable but essentially more than a rung or two down the ladder from Nielsen.
 
What is great about this disc is the startling playing of Sharon Bezaly. It is not that she grandstands in any way, she is just a phenomenally gifted flautist. She has already recorded a substantial number of significant works for her chosen instrument and by recording Nielsen's masterwork she has filled a glaring gap in the list. The Nielsen, it goes without saying, is extraordinarily well played. The detailed recording has real impact and presence. My only doubts must be placed at the door of the conductor Neeme Järvi. He seems to play down the more disruptive elements of this remarkable score. The trombone never, as Robert Simpson once put it, 'spreads himself all over the score with a grotesque and aimless blether' as it does in other recordings, and the timpani are surely too restrained. However, it must be admitted that Bezaly is so good at the lyrical elements that all has to be forgiven. The work has never been better recorded technically: that at least is certain.
 
For the rest: the Griffes' Poem surprises by its imagination and quality. It has a pensive opening and continues as quite a sad piece. Whatever the 'poem' was about it was not a happy tale. The first climax has a sinister feel and draws one's attention to the date of the work, 1918. Perhaps this is some sort of post-war elegy . About half way through things become more upbeat and there are hints of a country dance but even here the flute line is unsettled by the orchestra. After a brief moment of exoticism - Griffes did compose The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan - the opening mood returns. Reinecke's concerto demands that one ignores the date of composition (1908) because it is firmly in the mould of Schumann and Brahms. It is nonetheless a tuneful and attractive work. There is a lovely slow movement and an amiable finale. Bezaly displays complete control even in the final virtuoso moments. This, after the Nielsen and Griffes, may be the third reason to own the disc. Cécile Chaminade's Concertino is music for a warm summer afternoon and attractive in its way. Tchaikovsky's tiny Largo was an early piece and never published. It is no more than a pretty chip off the work bench. Poulenc's sonata is not untypical of the composer's lesser pieces in being only craftsmanlike. There is none of the tunefulness of the Concert Champêtre or Les Biches. As for the Rimsky, it is just one minute of virtuoso fun.
 
-- Dave Billinge, MusicWeb International

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Classical Music

Classical Music

Joseph Haydn’s six ‘Sun’ quartets Op. 20 show a blooming of his string quartet writing, setting the high bar for all composers who would follow due to their variety, unpredictability, and sense of adventure. This release is the first volume in the Chiaroscuro Quartet’s exploration of the ‘Sun’ quartets, and features Nos. 1, 2, and 3. Chiaroscuro Quartet was formed in 2005 by Alina Ibragimova, Pablo Hernan Benedi, Emilie Hornlund, and Claire Thirion. Gramophone called the ensemble ‘a trailblazer for the authentic performance of High Classical chamber music.” The ensemble plays on gut strings and utilizes educated historical performance practices, making them ‘a shock to the ears of the best kind.’ (The Observer)

Classical Music

Import Hybrid-SACD pressing.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Included on a separate DVD: 'Människans röst' ('Vox humana'), an 81-minute documentary (1973-78) about the composer made for Sveriges Television by Peter Berggren, Tommy Höglind and Gunnar Källström. With subtitles in English Allan Pettersson composed his Ninth Symphony in 1970, two years after the Seventh had been given a triumphant première conducted by Antal Dorati. This had brought him greater recognition than ever before, but at the same time his health was deteriorating even further, and shortly after completing the Ninth Pettersson was hospitalized for a period of nine months. It is striking that he at such a time should have chosen to compose what is the longest of all his works - in the score Pettersson himself estimated the duration to '65-70 minutes', and the first recording of the work actually lasted for more than 80 minutes. As so many of the symphonies, the work is in one single movement which may be described as an extended struggle in which harmony is the ultimate winner. As Pettersson himself had said about an earlier work: 'If one fights one's way through a symphony one needs to achieve consonance and harmony even if it takes twenty hours to do so.' In the case of the Ninth, this harmony is summed up more concisely than ever before or after, in the final two chords which form a plagal or 'Amen' cadence in F major. Completing a cycle for BIS of Pettersson's symphonies, Christian Lindberg and the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra have been receiving great critical acclaim for previous instalments - most recently a Sixth described in International Record Review as 'a release that could well be the ideal introduction to Pettersson's singular musical vision'. About the same disc, the reviewer in Gramophone wrote: 'Lindberg's empathy for Pettersson's music is once again shown in the Sixth, where he catches its dark atmosphere to perfection, pacing its progress through the succession of climaxes superbly well.' The present recording is accompanied by a bonus DVD - an 80-minute documentary made during Allan Pettersson's final years which for the first time is being made available to a wider international audience.

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