Gianandrea Noseda continues his Italian series with a recording of works of Wolf-Ferrari. This will be promoted as the March Featured Release. This is a project very close to the heart of the BBC Philharmonic's Principal Conductor, something reflected in the passionate performances he creates. BBC Music magazine commented early on that 'Noseda's affection for the music is evident throughout'. Even at the time of his appointment, he spoke of his ambition to record the works of the twentieth-century Italian composers, and he has since recorded works by Respighi and Dallapiccola. 'Gianandrea Noseda understands the music's lyrical strength and fragile sound-world perfectly; the playing of the BBC Philharmonic is exemplary, too', wrote The Guardian on the Dallapiccola disc. Known mainly for his operatic compositions, perhaps especially the overture to Il segreto di Susanna, Wolf-Ferrari was that rare phenomenon, famously exemplified by Busoni, of an Italian composer better known in Germany than in his homeland. The son of a German painter and his Italian wife, Wolf-Ferrari made his home in Munich and was throughout his life divided by the two cultures, something that provided a foundation of his creative existence, particularly in his attachment to the neo-classical style. Noseda and the BBC Philharmonic present extracts from five operas, I quattro rusteghi, Il segreto di Susanna, I gioielli della Madonna, Il campiello and La dama boba. They are complemented by the Suite-Concertino for bassoon, two horns and strings. The soloist is Karen Geoghegan who recently made her debut on Chandos following her appearance on the television programme Classical Star. With such distinguished and sympathetic advocacy, the music of Wolf-Ferrari should achieve the worldwide recognition that it deserves.

What pushes this release over the top is the brilliant fiddling of James Ehnes, combined with the incredibly intelligent idea of putting all of Bartók's string concertos together on a single disc. Ehnes, for his part, is just as comfortable on the viola as he is on the violin. He digs into the rustic Hungarian melodies in the finale of the Viola Concerto or the beginning of the Violin Concerto No. 2 with a richly resonant gusto that never turns crude, while at the same time his impeccable intonation gives the slithery chromatics of the First concerto real shape and direction. He's a phenomenal artist, make no mistake. Gianandrea Noseda's accompaniments are very good--bracing and very well paced. As so often from these forces, however, the orchestra is a touch bland--never less than proficient, most of the time a good bit more than that, but also not as arresting and colorful as it could be. Still, as I said, the quality of Ehnes' playing and the value of the program earn this disc a top recommendation. Anything less would be churlish.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

ATTERBERG Symphonies Nos. 2 and 8 • Neeme Järvi, cond; Gothenburg SO; Natl O of Sweden • CHANDOS 5133 (SACD: 61:28)

It was less than a year ago, in Fanfare 37:1, that I reviewed Volume 1 in a promised new Chandos survey of the orchestral works of Kurt Atterberg, so I won’t take up unnecessary time and space recapping the ups and downs the composer’s music and reputation have experienced throughout much of the 20th century; you can read that story in the previous review. The earlier volume contained Atterberg’s Fourth and Sixth symphonies, plus a Rhapsody and a Suite, all done to a turn by Neeme Järvi and the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. Here Järvi again takes charge of the same ensemble, which, in parentheses, is now identified by its new official name, the National Orchestra of Sweden, to give us Atterberg’s Second and Eighth symphonies.

Atterberg (1887–1974) may be generally classified among the late Swedish Romantic nationalists, along with Wilhelm Stenhammar, Hugo Alfvén, Otto Olsson, Wilhelm Peterson-Berger, and Ture Rangström. Like them, Atterberg brought with him into the 20th century an extended, post-Wagnerian harmonic vocabulary, a love of Nordic legend and folklore, and an ear for big, colorful orchestral scores. All of this was wedded, however, to a keen sense of Classical forms and 19th-century procedures of thematic exposition and development.

When it comes to Atterberg’s symphonies, Järvi has a respectable competitor in Ari Rasilainen on CPO. Rasilainen’s early 2000s recordings of all nine Atterberg symphonies with various German orchestras are generally quite good, even if I quibbled over a tempo or two in my previous review. But so far, Järvi seems to enjoy two advantages over Rasilainen: The consistency in playing and sound from a single orchestra, and the breadth and depth of the sonic image afforded by the recording’s multi-channel, surround-sound format.

Atterberg’s Second is a beauty. This is music that’s hard to resist—unstinting in melodic generosity and exuding a feeling of the goodness of the human spirit. The score underwent much revision and transformation between 1911 and 1913, when it was finally premiered in its current form. It’s hard to know if Atterberg may have heard Strauss’s Don Juan, or if it’s just sheer coincidence that at 2:30 into the Symphony’s first movement, there’s a passage that is strongly suggestive of the German composer’s tone poem. In any case, it’s surprising that this Symphony hasn’t received wider attention than it has, for it’s a wonderful specimen of the late-blooming Romanticism one hears in works that came from the pens of Scandinavian composers during the first two decades of the 20th century.

The Eighth Symphony is ostensibly based on Swedish folk melodies, but the score dates from 1944, a time when Europe was ravaged be war. Officially, Sweden remained a neutral nation throughout the duration of hostilities, but its pragmatic government aided the Germans in allowing the Wehrmacht use of Sweden’s railroads and in permitting passage of a German infantry division through Swedish territory on its way to invading Russia.

Even in a neutral country, I’m sure one couldn’t escape the daily news from the front of battles being waged and carnage being wrought; and while Atterberg’s Eighth is not quite a “war” symphony in the same way that Shostakovich’s Seventh is, there’s a pervasive feeling of darkness and gloom that hangs over this E-Minor Symphony, and a good deal of the type of ostinato-driven “advancing tanks” music one hears in Shostakovich’s works. If Atterberg doesn’t aim for or achieve the same degree of crushing brutality that Shostakovich does, he still manages to cast an effectively grim pall over the proceedings. While Richard Strauss may have been a minor influence on Atterberg’s youthful Second Symphony, the influence now on his Eighth points to Sibelius, specifically the Finnish composer’s earlier tone poems, such as En Saga and Nightride and Sunrise.

As noted in my previous review, Atterberg has made a number of appearances, disappearances, and reappearances over the years. With this unfolding cycle of his orchestral works by Neeme Järvi and the National Orchestra of Sweden in these excellent performances and brilliant recordings by Chandos, I have a feeling that this time Atterberg is here to stay. These are marvelous works surely of comparable quality to the symphonies of other Scandinavian composers of the time. Very strongly recommended.

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

SIBELIUS Violin Concerto1. Karelia Suite. The Swan of Tuonela. Valse lyrique, op. 96a. Valse triste, op. 44/1. Andante festivo, JS 34b. Finlandia • Andrew Davis, cond; 1Jennifer Pike (vn); Bergen PO • CHANDOS 5134 (SACD: 78:24)

Here it is; the recording of Sibelius’s Violin Concerto I’ve always wanted. Ironically, though, it’s not either of the two I’ve been wishing and waiting for, which would be ones by James Ehnes and Julia Fischer. No, this one comes out of left field as a complete surprise from a little-recorded violinist, Jennifer Pike, whose acquaintance I’ve made only once before when she joined the Doric String Quartet for a performance of Chausson’s Concert for Piano, Violin, and String Quartet on a Chandos CD I reviewed in 36:6. In fact, it was Pike’s contribution to that performance that redeemed the Doric Quartet for me, after it had batted out on three previous occasions. I’ve not heard Pike’s handful of other recordings, which include sonatas by Brahms, Schumann, Franck, Debussy, and Ravel, and a performance of Rózsa’s Violin Concerto.

“Perfect” is an absolute; so too, theoretically, is the speed of light, yet both real science and science fiction postulate conditions under which the speed of light can be exceeded. I would therefore propose to you that Jennifer Pike’s Sibelius Concerto is beyond perfect; it exists in the realm of the ideal.

In prior reviews, I’ve let it be known that the Sibelius is my all-time favorite violin concerto, and that over the years I’ve managed to acquire somewhere between 30 and 40 recordings of the piece—50 or 60 if I count the ones I still have on LP. I’ve also wished it were possible to combine the best features of various performances in order to come up with “The One.” I believe Jennifer Pike has ended that quest, for this is, without a doubt, the best Sibelius Violin Concerto I’ve ever heard.

From the shimmering tremolo in the strings that begin the work, to Pike’s whispered “Behold, I tell you a mystery” entrance, every moment, every breath, is filled with vibrating expectation and pulsating suspense. One moment, her tone seems to come from the dark recesses of Finland’s deep forests, and the next, it glints with the blue-white light of Sibelius’s icy landscapes.

Every tempo is perfectly judged, and Pike sails through the work’s most technically strenuous passages with not so much as a single scrape of her bow or a coarsening of her tone. Her harmonics alone—both natural and artificial—are breathtaking; every single one of them rings the way harmonics should when they’re hit just right. I could go on for paragraphs describing Pike’s miraculous performance, but I’ll content myself with describing one last aspect of her reading before moving on.

Few movements in all of music convey the rush of sexual ecstasy as explicitly as does the Adagio of this concerto. I’ve often thought it should come with an “X” rating. The way Sibelius builds towards the climax, driving towards it, backing away from it, then approaching it again, with the solo violin throbbing and pulsing over the heartbeat in the orchestra pounding ever faster, louder, and harder. When done right, it should set your own heart to racing and your palms to sweating. But much is critical to getting this movement just right, starting with the tempo. Too slow and the heightening sense of tension is lost; too fast, and the full impact of the climax is diminished. Heifetz with Beecham and the London Philharmonic, at 7:47, for example, sounds impatient with the foreplay and wants to be done with the deed with a minimum of moaning and shouting. Perlman with Previn and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, on the other hand, at 8:51, is too slow, running the risk of his partner falling asleep mid-coitus. Jennifer Pike splits the difference and gets it just right at 8: 16.

There are other telling details to consider too. In bar 21, having reached the first plateau in the ascent to rapture, the solo violin has a kind of shiver or shudder in the form of seven 32nd notes and two 16ths, which is then echoed, softer, in the next measure. Many violinists seem to take some liberties with this particular figure, interpreting it in a variety of ways, and teasing it to achieve different effects. Isaac Stern, for example, in his recording with Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra gives it a Jewish twist, making it sound like an old Chassid exhaling a sigh. It’s quite affecting, but I’m not sure it’s what Sibelius had in mind. It needs to sound like the quivering or shaking that attends the excited anticipation of what’s to come.

The crucial aspect of this figure is in its return immediately following the big orchestral climax 13 bars before the end. It’s a stroke of Sibelian genius, because now, the exact same shiver or shudder, which earlier expressed excited anticipation, now reflects its opposite, as all previous tension is released and drains away in a perfect sigh of exhaustion.

Among my many recordings of the piece, the closest any violinist has come to capturing the essence of that feeling—before Jennifer Pike, that is—is Pinchas Zukerman with Daniel Barenboim and the London Philharmonic on a Deutsche Grammophon LP I have. I believe that performance is available on a not widely circulated and perhaps no longer available CD on the Eloquence label. In any case, you need look no further because Pike nails it.

None of this would be possible, of course, without the participation and contributions of Andrew Davis, the Bergen Philharmonic, sound engineer Ralph Couzens, and the rest of the production team responsible for this stunning SACD recording. The Bergen’s brass players snarl their stentorian blasts with the best of them, and while I won’t go so far as to say this performance will wake the dead, I can pretty much promise it will rouse thy neighbors.

The remainder of the program, equally magnificently performed and recorded, is a kind of hit parade of Sibelius’s most popular orchestral works—Finlandia, Valse Triste, The Swan of Tuonela, the Andante festivo, and the Karelia Suite—and in one instance—the Valse lyrique—a piece not so well known, which began as the concluding number in a suite for solo piano. Sibelius subsequently pulled it from the suite and scored it as a stand-alone piece for orchestra.

With the release of this recording, the now 24-year-old, prize-winning Jennifer Pike can no longer be considered an up and coming artist, for as far as I’m concerned, she has done up and come. She has arrived and can be numbered among today’s top violin virtuosos. This one is going on my 2014 Want List for sure.

FANFARE: Jerry Dubins

This one's a keeper. Gabriel Pierné was the French Mahler, not stylistically perhaps, but in terms of his skill set. A superb conductor, he applied his podium experience to his compositions, writing immaculately finished, brilliantly scored pieces in a wide range of styles. Aesthetically he couldn't be further from his Czech/German/Jewish colleague, but the comparison is apt nonetheless. Like Mahler's, Pierné's idiom is hard to categorize in its inclusivity.

The Piano Concerto is a diverting romp in the spirit of Saint-Saëns' Second (it has no slow movement at all). The Divertissement is charm incarnate. The Ramuntcho suites incorporate Basque themes and stand in a long and illustrious line of French tributes to Spain. They are wholly wonderful. The March of the Little Lead Soldiers needs no introduction, and is not to be confused with Pierné's other "greatest hit", the March of the Super Cute Little Mythological Faun Critters from the ballet Cydalise et le chèvre-pied.

These performances are stunning. There is a similar coupling of Ramuntcho and the concerto on BIS, and it's very good. But Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is an unbeatable soloist, and the orchestral playing under Mena is irreproachable. Toss in the two couplings (the Divertissement is actually quite substantial), plus terrific sonics, and the result is simply irresistible. You'll love this music.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

LISZT Années de pèlerinage • Louis Lortie (pn) • CHANDOS 10662 (2 CDs: 161:20)


There’s been no dearth of Années de pèlerinage recordings over the past year or so. Predictably, they range from the compelling (Libor Novacek, Années I and II, Landor 290 and 278; André Laplante, Années I, Analekta 29980), to the less good (Michael Korstick, Années I and II, cpo 777478 and 777585), to the deeply disappointing (Jerome Lowenthal, Années complete, Bridge 9307). The new, complete Années de pèlerinage of Louis Lortie, however, is in a class all its own. He approaches this summit of romanticism steeped in the music of Liszt (his recording of all the works for piano and orchestra, Chandos 10371, a collaboration during 1999–2000 with George Pehlivanian and the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague, is one of the finest). Lortie is a richly imaginative musician and a pianist of cultured refinement whose interpretations invariably tend toward understatement. These 26 pieces occupied Liszt for some 46 years and, along with the Sonata, are emblematic of his achievement as a piano composer. You get the sense that Lortie has long lived with the entire cycle, coming to know (and love) each of its components equally well. Add to this his unstinting identification with Liszt’s poetic message, and you have all the elements required for an Années de pèlerinage of tremendous freshness and originality.


Amid the Alpine landscapes of Book I, the Swiss Year, Lortie conjures uncluttered vistas and pristine atmosphere with unhurried tempos that give each phrase plenty of breathing room. The mini-triptych within the cycle, Au lac de Wallenstadt, Pastorale, and Au Bord d’une source, is painted in luminous colors, highlighted here and there with an exquisitely inflected tempo rubato . When the bucolic idyll is shattered by Orage, Lortie lets loose this implacable force of nature with phrasing that is so deftly shaped, pedaling so restrained, and dynamics so infinitely calibrated that each gust and cascading torrent seems audible. Vallée d’Obermann , the centerpiece of the Swiss Year, has been, at least in recent decades, the most frequently excerpted piece from the cycle. Divorced from context, and in spite of its formal interest, the Vallée has come to typify the 19th-century set piece, more creaking and tear-stained with each iteration. Lortie will have none of that. In a performance both masculine and heartfelt, we sense Obermann’s struggle toward spiritual rejuvenation through the majesty of nature. In place of a sob sister, we have a psychological drama, a genuine pilgrimage, at once gripping and imminently credible, that restores the dignity and stature of this wonderful piece.


Book II, the first of the two Italian Years, demonstrates Lortie’s success in both the scintillatingly intimate miniature and the implacable grandeur of the epic. The chaste refinement of color and line in Raphael’s Milan altarpiece are evoked in an ecstatic reading of Sposalizio. The three Sonnetti del Petrarca provide an interesting case of how the over-exposed can be imbued with new luster and meaning. Lortie achieves this with an unambiguous directness and simplicity of utterance. It is as though we hear Petrarch’s poems declaimed. The fioritura cadenzas emerge organically from the text, a piacere, each note beautifully articulated and perfectly suited to context. Moreover, the Sonnetti exemplify Lortie’s characteristic phrasing, always delineated by what can be maintained with human breath. The culmination of Book II, Après une lecture du Dante: Fantasia quasi Sonata , known as the Dante Sonata , is the longest piece of the entire cycle and far away the most technically challenging. The stentorian introduction draws on an unusually varied dynamic palette to set the stage for the drama that will unfold. In the Presto agitato assai , evoking the whirlwinds of the Inferno, Lortie maintains extraordinarily extended crescendi and decresecendi , drawing on an infinitely calibrated dynamic control and acute rhythmical inflection. Later, in the transition between the second statement of the redemption motif and the return to the infernal maelstrom, he uses the strategy again with stunning results. Over the course of a minute and 20 seconds, and through 22 note-filled measures covering more than two pages in the score, Lortie builds one long, seamless crescendo of overwhelming magnitude. At the return of the tremolando redemption motif in the piano’s upper registers, it sounds like shimmering violins. The final apotheosis seems a blaze of light, though here, as throughout the piece, there is no hint of overplaying or empty bombast. It might be added that in the Dante Sonata, and in pieces like the Chappelle de Guillaume Tell from Book I and Book III’s Sunt lacrymae rerum, where Liszt exploits the piano’s lowest register, it sounds as though the bottom-octave strings of Lortie’s Fazioli grand are a quarter mile long.


But the most remarkable feature of this outstanding recording is the third Année . Its seven pieces represent a distillation of Liszt’s late style and inhabit psychological realms seldom traversed by other 19th-century composers. A number of pianists who recorded the first two books simply don’t venture into the third, and those who have seem confounded sooner or later. Lortie, on the other hand, has plumbed the depths of these strange yet deeply artistic creations, developing interpretations that are remarkable in sharpness of focus and clarity of expression. The best-known of the set, Les Jeux d’eau à la Villa d’Este, combines the utmost delicacy and refinement with a disarming simplicity. Phrases are sculpted with unerring proportion and contour. The villa’s hundred fountains sparkle and splash in a virtuoso display of exquisitely understated pianistic finesse. Nor are the implications of Liszt’s Biblical reference to the waters of everlasting life neglected; a sense of ecstatic spirituality pervades the whole as though it were a sacrament in sound. Musically speaking, the Marche funèbre for the Emperor Maximillian, with its dark impasto and difficult transitions, is one of the most challenging pieces in the set. But what has remained a puzzle in many otherwise creditable performances of the third Année is compellingly deciphered by Lortie. Liszt’s idiosyncratic rhetoric is rendered comprehensible, including the problematic fortissimo trionfante in F?-Major that in so many other readings simply falls flat. Book III opens with Angelus , a prayer to the guardian angels, and closes with Sursum corda , “lift up your hearts,” a reference to the preface to the canon of the Mass. The blend of intuition, intellect, and philosophical insight Lortie brings to Sursum corda , with its prismatic harmonies undulating over the fixed anchor of a pedal point on E, creates a mighty culmination of the cycle.


On this recording, Venezia e Napoli , the supplement to Book II, is placed at the end of the recording, following the stylistically distant third Année . It is an interesting choice, which casts Venezia e Napoli as a sort of encore to the entire cycle, bringing us back to earth after the lofty metaphysics of Book III. Incidentally, the Tarantella is fierce. The recording was made during three days last November at Potton Hall, Dunwich, Suffolk, and the Chandos engineers captured the sound of Lortie’s Fazioli grand brilliantly.


This Années de pèlerinage is unquestionably one of the finest releases thus far during the Liszt bicentennial. Time will tell, but it also may be the finest recording of the work to date. Not to be missed.


FANFARE: Patrick Rucker


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Louis Lortie's survey of the complete Années de Pèlerinage adds up to his finest Liszt playing on disc. The interpretations abound with new-found reserves of virtuosic flair and poetic sensitivity. You hear both of these qualities in the opening piece, La chapelle de Guillaume Tell, where Lortie varies the murmuring tremolo chords with subtle nuances yet doesn't hold back in the climactic Allegro vivace. You hear similar textural variety and heightened drama throughout Aux cypres de la Villa d'Este II.

In both Orage and the Dante sonata Lortie's superb technique enables him to articulate the long stretches of octaves in shapely legato lines that are executed with minimum pedal. This similarly applies to the ferocity and momentum Lortie generates in Vallée d'Obermann's peroration. Whereas pianists like Claudio Arrau and Muza Rubackyté take their time to savor Les jeux d'eau à la Villa d'Este's jet-spray arpeggiated figures, Lortie's comparable accuracy and finesse reveals them in a lighter, more playful manifestation. Lortie's well-judged tempo relationships create unity and momentum in Venezia e Napoli's Tarantella, but I prefer Marc-André Hamelin's almost offhanded panache and astounding repeated-note technique. While Chandos' slightly diffuse and distant sonics don't match Rubackyté's Lyrinx release for detail and warmth, they do reflect Lortie's robust sonority as one might experience it in a small concert hall. Strongly recommended.

--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

These are very fine performances, and if you want just one collection of the composer’s major orchestral works then by all means, grab this set. If you have even a shred of interest you probably already have one or more of the discs—perhaps the Second or, most likely, the Third symphony, but the ballet music and the shorter works are unfailingly attractive, even if they are also unfailingly unadventurous. For the curious, this is self-recommending.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Alongside his nine symphonies and several suites of dances, Sir Malcolm Arnold’s dozen or so overtures form a crucial and very characteristic component of his catalogue and his musical temperament. This spanking and sparkly new Chandos collection of 10 of these alternatingly radiant and rousing works is a greatly welcome compilation, as they are resplendently performed by the BBC Philharmonic under the tireless Rumon Gamba. One highlight of this release is the premiere recording of the latest of Sir Malcolm’s works in this form, Robert Kett, op. 141 of 1990. This rather stark eight-minute piece commemorates another proletarian uprising, and as such is a throwback to what is certainly the most dramatic of the overtures, Peterloo, op. 97, composed more than two decades earlier in 1967. Although not designated as a premiere, the three-minute Flourish for Orchestra, op. 112 of 1973, will also be new to most listeners.

The program opens with the first recording in decades of the famous (perhaps “infamous” is more apt) Grand Grand Overture, op. 57 (1956), written for the Hoffnung Festival of musical parody and all-around foolishness and featuring three vacuum cleaners and one floor polisher—all specially tuned—among its principals, all of which soloists get star billing on this CD. This work out-Rossinis Rossini by seemingly never being able to settle on a final resolution or chordal closure—it has climax after climax, resulting in one of the most hilarious passages in musical history.

Of course, this disc includes those four great early overtures—Beckus the Dandipratt, The Smoke, Sussex, and Tam o’ Shanter—the first and last of which helped to inscribe Sir Malcolm’s name indelibly on the British musical map and led to his long and successful career as a film composer. These earlier works possess a snarling ferocity and shameless effrontery that seem to be restrained in the later “occasional” overtures, such as the lyrically waltz-based Fair Field, op. 110 (1972), and the celebratory shorter Anniversary Overture, op. 99 (1968), which was originally entitled the Hong Kong Festival Overture. The only other overture missing from this collection is the extended (nearly 20 minutes) Commonwealth Christmas Overture of 1957, which marked the 25th anniversary of King George’s Christmas greetings, broadcast by the BBC in 1932. In this work, which was included in the now deleted 1992 Reference CD of overtures conducted by the composer with the London Philharmonic, Sir Malcolm threw in many of the elements comprising his more pop-oriented works as a kind of musical cross section of the British Empire.

It is always interesting to compare the composer’s own versions of Beckus, The Smoke (which is really Arnold’s London Overture), A Fair Field, and A Sussex Overture with Gamba’s. The latter treats the scores as genuine curtain-raisers, while the composer, who is notorious for his elongated and erratic tempos, gives them more of a “tone poem” cast with many dramatically contrasted passages, as he also does in his EMI recording of the Peterloo Overture. For example, his Smoke is 12 minutes long; Gamba’s is only eight!

But both approaches are musically valid and convincing as well as emotionally rewarding, and this Chandos disc should be part of any self-respecting collection of 20th- century English music. Hear! Hear!

Paul A. Snook, FANFARE

Classical Music

Classical Music

Following the recent re-issues of Prokofiev orchestral works, Chandos now releases the superb Neeme Jarvi and Scottish National Orchestra recordings of Prokofiev's seven symphonies. Prokofiev has had few ambassadors as committed as Jarvi, and they are now available at 24-bit/96kHz on Chandos Classics. "No one is more warmly dramatic in Prokofiev than Jarvi, making his issues consistently recommendable." (The Guardian.) "These Chandos recordings from the mid-1980s are of the highest quality." (Penguin Guide) This 4-CD set is available at the price of 3 CDs.

The Celtic twilight in Bax's music is ripely and sympathetically caught?The Chandos recording is superb.' The Penguin Complete Guide 'Throughout Bryden Thomson encourages his players to scrupulous observance of dynamic nuance?as well as a sensitive projection of atmosphere. There is plenty of exhuberance and rhythmic vitality and excellent internal balance.' Gramophone Recorded in: Ulster Hall, Belfast 10-11 April 1983 (Tintagel) and 28 & 29 June 1982 (other works) Producer(s) Brian Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Ralph Couzens Philip Couzens (Tintagel)

'All in all, a most attractive recording, which can easily serve as the sole representative of this music in anyone's collection.' Fanfare 'Whatever else may be on your "must" list of classical CDs to buy, move it all down a notch and put this one on top. The two full-scale Martin? concertos on this disc can stand honourably with the few cello concertos ever programmed. Wallfisch brings a compelling mix of technical first and expressive insight... Not enough can be said for Chandos' vibrant recording which puts real life-blood in the cello sound.' 'Disc of the Month', CD Review Cello Concertos Nos 1 and 2 are fully characteristic of Martin? and exemplary of the influence that France, in particular, had on his composition. They contain some of his best music and are here complemented by an early Cello Concertino. This popular recording by Raphael Wallfisch and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under Ji?í B?lohlávek is now available on the Chandos Classics label. The repertoire is rarely recorded and the disc will prove attractive on the market, at a highly competitive price.

BEETHOVEN: String Quartets, Vol. 5

The Prodigal Son was Prokofiev's last project for the impresario Sergey Diaghilev, who died the year after the ballet was first staged, and in it the composer made his first venture into a musical world dominated not by rhythm but by melody. Järvi and the Scottish National Orchestra here perform the fascinating score complete, adding the Divertimento, the Andante which Prokofiev orchestrated from the central slow movement of his Piano Sonata No.4, Op.29, and the relatively unknown Symphonic Song. Of the original release The Canberra Times wrote, 'The playing throughout is first class, Järvi has a fine feeling for the special qualities of the music, and the engineering is excellent. This is a most attractive disc of the lesser-known music of Prokofiev, which also offers much listening pleasure'. American Record Guide commented, 'Once again, Chandos provides their usual reverberant and vibrant sound. In all its facets, this innovative and distinguished release continues their Prokofiev winning streak'.