Even listening "blind," I suspect I'd have pegged these as Russian performances. The opening 'cello phrase of the D minor Trio is distinctly melancholy; the violin, taking up the same theme, infuses the vaulting leaps with yearning; and the arrival of the "tutti" at 1:11 is rather grand -- or, at any rate, as grand as three instruments can make it.

So it goes. The Borodin Trio's heightened emotional scale doesn't turn Mendelssohn into Tchaikovsky, as one might fear, but the more turbulent passages of the D minor's first-movement development do suggest a sort of Slavic Beethoven. The pianist launches the Andante con moto tranquillo with a simplicity that recalls the Songs without Words, but the string players take over on the repeats with a saturated, vibrant tone, and the more unsettled second theme rises to unusually impassioned climaxes. The Scherzo comes off as both playful and trenchant, echoing its Midsummer Night's Dream counterpart in spirit. The Finale is cogent and persuasive, with the climaxes again bringing an added touch of grandeur and breadth. It's an impressive and satisfying performance, though likely to disconcert those who think of Mendelssohn's output as uniformly graceful and featherweight.

Stylistically, the C minor Trio's outer movements follow more or less conventional patterns -- or perhaps I'd simply gotten used to the Borodin's expanded sense of scale -- but the playing still has its uniquely reflective moments. The Andante espressivo again juxtaposes the piano's gentle rocking rhythm with more heartfelt, sustained string playing; the players really bring out the expressive weight in the development's string of secondary modulations. This Scherzo, taut and volatile, recalls its counterpart from the Octet. The Finale's main theme, with its triple rhythm, has a nice swing; the players lean on their agogic stretches to maintain a firm propulsion.

The sound quality is big, warm and vivid to match the performances, avoiding the excessive ambient resonance that would characterize Chandos's orchestral recordings. This budget-price reissue merits a warm welcome.

-- Stephen Francis Vasta, MusicWeb International

Kabalevsky belonged to the middle generation of Soviet-Russian composers whose careers became a search for a style that could achieve some sort of modus vivendi with the requirements of Stalin's 'Socialist Realism'. Accessibility, tunefulness, clear-cut forms, optimistic expression, a traditional orientation towards the great Russian classics of the nineteenth century - these were the kinds of quality expected by the Soviet establishment. Kabalevsky came to enjoy a successful and uncontroversial career, although he found himself at the receiving end of accusations of 'formalism', which he hardly deserved for his was a skilfully crafted type of expression, drawing on the spirit of folk-melody, and quite free from 'modernism'. His temperament and relative musical conservatism enabled Kabalevsky, unlike other Soviet composers such as Shostakovich and Prokofiev, to serve the Stalinist regime without painful compromise. His adherence to principles of Socialist Realism, however, should not detract from the very real worth of works that are superbly crafted, overflowing with a natural joie de vivre and of real substance. Symphony No. 2 proved to be the most successful of his three early essays in the genre - indeed, the only one of his four symphonies to establish itself in the orchestral repertoire, both at home and abroad. This is an accessible, fluently composed work - very much in the spirit of Russian folk nationalism - and the first movement has been compared with the first movement of Tchaikovsky's Pathétique Symphony. The piano concertos are highly contrasting representations of Kabalevsky's oeuvre but both are written in a direct and accessible style, clearly inspired by Rachmaninov and Prokofiev. The previous volume was well received: Stott plays both concertos with aplomb but also with an understandable wariness of their superficiality, coaxing out their lyricism but playing down their brilliance... Fanfare on CHAN 10052, Piano Concertos Nos 2 and 3

Emma Kirkby, internationally renowned for her interpretations of early music, joins Canadian soprano Suzie LeBlanc, Peter Harvey, Clare Salaman, and The Purcell Quartet in this disc of sacred music by Buxtehude. This is the only available reecording of many of the works on this disc. Recorded in: St Jude on the Hill, Hampstead, London 14-16 February 2002 Producer(s) Rachel Smith Sound Engineer(s) Jonathan Cooper Michael Common

Masterly performance of a masterwork: the stuff of legend is finally heard

All together now, "At last!" The famous Goodall Mastersingers makes it on to CD. Yes, it’s in English, which may put some off, but the burnished tone and deep sensitivity of Albertio Remedios, the endless understanding of Norman Bailey’s Sachs and Goodall’s wise, expansive conducting (with no longueurs here as there occasionally are in his Ring) make this a prize issue.

-- Gramophone [7/2008]

'A Sea Symphony' is Vaughan Williams' response to Walt Whitman's inspirational, visionary verse. It is recorded here from the June 2006 highly-praised performance by London Symphony Orchestra and Symphony Chorus with soloists Gerald Finley and Susan Gritton, and Richard Hickox at the helm. The symphony is coupled with his much-loved overture to 'The Wasps' and the dynamism of the concert performances is preserved in the surround-sound SACD production.

Classical Music

Those fortunate enough to attend Glyndebourne know how well Felicity Lott sings operatic Strauss, so it is particularly pleasing that wider and larger audiences enjoy her outstanding performance of the Four Last songs and can now have it on record. . . . [T]he songs are sung in the order of the 1950 first performance, with ''Beim schlafengehen'' first . . . . Emotionally this seems to me an improvement on the published sequence. Lott's radiant singing reminds me of Sena Jurinac in this music. It has a comparable glistening purity and brightness of tone. Her diction is immaculate and the sheer rapture of her phrasing—in a line like ''Sommer lachelt erstaunt'' and especially her profoundly moving delivery of ''So tief im Abendrot'' in the final song—is glorious to hear. The orchestral playing is luminous and rich in detail. -- Gramophone

Recorded in: Goldsmith's College, New Cross, London 9-14 August 1994 Producer(s) Brian Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Ralph Couzens Richard Smoker (Assistant)

Classical Music

Listening to this disc reminded me of just how much fun these transcriptions are. You'd need a cold heart jot to be thrilled by the horror-film drama of the D minor Toccata and Fugue: the roar of the bass, the tremble of the strings, and the snarl of the brass are tremendous, and the things he does with the ending are just crazy. But it's tremendous! Who cares if the transcriber has taken enormous liberties? These transcriptions are things in themselves, separate from, indeed all but independent from their source material, and it would take the worst kind of purist not to glory in that fact.

Bamert and the BBC Philharmonic sound great. Byrd's Pavane and Bach's Air on the G String benefit from gorgeously rich, slushy string sound, though the Air has a rather inexplicable increase in tempo towards the end, and Wachet Auf suffers from the same thing. The Prince of Denmark's March is a little peremptory, but Jesu, Joy is delightful, as is Tchaikovsky's simply arranged Andante Cantabile. Dido's Lament is most notable for the mature way it handles the piece's emotional power, deeply moving without ever being manipulative, while the opposite is true of Panis Angelicus. Shostakovich's UN March sounds a bit like Sousa, while Stokowski's own take on Night on Bare Mountain is even more ghostly than the better known versions, though the ending is transcendent in a way that seems not entirely appropriate. Some things are more bizarre than others: Mozart’s Rondo alla Turca sounds a little silly, and playing Buxtehude on an Ondes Martenot is something that arguably not even Stokowski could get away with; however, Chopin's Funeral March will shake you to your boots (and fully test your speakers' bass capabilities).

It can be hoped for that this release goes some way to rehabilitating these transcriptions for an age where affinity to the original has become sacrosanct. Recommended.

– MusicWeb International (Simon Thompson)

Tansman’s colourful music is rendered in vital performances brilliantly recorded.

Tansman was a prolific and versatile composer whose music dropped off the musical scene when its elegant Neo-classicism became unfashionable. This did not deter the composer who continued to compose while remaining true to himself. The Chandos Tansman series, of which this is the fourth volume, might certainly help restore Tansman’s music to a wider audience. Next to his symphonies Tansman composed four chamber symphonies that span more than fifty years of his composing life. The earliest of them is the Sinfonietta No.1 completed in 1924 when the composer was in Paris. At that time he came under the influence of Stravinsky and the Groupe des Six with whom he felt deep sympathy. This is reflected in music which often reminds one of these composers. It’s none the worse for that as Tansman’s craftsmanship is such that he succeeds in making something of his own out of the various influences that he may have experienced at that time. The Sinfonietta No.1 has more of the divertimento about it than the symphony albeit a short symphony.

The Second World War compelled Tansman and his family to leave France and settle in the States where they stayed till the end of the war. Both the Sinfonia piccola and the Symphonie de chambre, composed well after his return to France, are partly imbued with the composer’s war experience. This also accounts for the rather more serious character of these works. The Sinfonia piccola is in four concise movements and the music often displays considerable energy reminiscent of Honegger. Similarly the Symphonie de chambre, scored for oboe, horn, strings, piano and percussion, opens with a propulsive Toccata. This strongly reminded me of Martinu’s powerful masterpiece Concerto for double string orchestra, piano and timpani of 1939 as well as of Honegger’s Second Symphony. The central movement is a beautiful and deeply felt Elegy and the whole is capped by an energetic Fugue. To my mind the Symphonie de chambre is the most impressive work here.

Tansman’s name and music were banned by the Polish communist authorities for more than thirty years. The composer had to wait until 1978 when several celebrations were organised in Poland on the occasion of his eightieth birthday. The Sinfonietta No.2 was composed for that occasion and was first performed in 1978. Again the work is in four movements while the music – though clearly Tansman’s own throughout – had a few surprises such as the twelve-tone row with which the first movement opens. The second movement, too, has more than a touch of irony since Tansman quotes a popular song about a man thought to be dead though still well and truly alive. It’s a direct allusion to the long neglect into which his music fell in Poland after World War II. After a short Adagio quasi intermezzo the work ends with yet another energetic and rhythmically alert Finale capped by an appeased coda restating some of the material from the Adagio.

I have not heard the other instalments of this Tansman series but, as far as I can judge, Caetani firmly believes in this music and conducts vital readings of these colourful scores. The recording is quite bright – maybe too bright for some tastes – but perfectly serving these often ebullient scores. Those who have already invested in the earlier releases will certainly know what to expect and therefore do not need any further recommendation. Others will certainly find much to enjoy here.

-- Hubert Culot, MusicWeb International

Includes work(s) by Claude Debussy. Ensemble: Ulster Orchestra. Conductor: Yan Pascal Tortelier.

Marking their third collaboration, violinist Tasmin Little with conductor Sir Andrew Davis are acclaimed for their nuanced understanding of the concertos of Elgar and Moeran and here demonstrate the deep connection to British music with works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Haydn Wood, and Frederick Delius. With the BBC Philharmonic.

Review:

Besides the stellar quality of Little's playing (as ever, warmly engaging and technically bombproof), Sir Andrew Davis and the BBC Philharmonic provide accompaniments in a special class. The slow movements of Wood's Concerto opens with a long theme for the principal horn, delivered here with spellbinding loveliness.

– BBC Music Magazine

This present collection admirably shows the ingenious simplicity of Arne's writing, very much in the mid-eighteenth-century English pastoral school. At the beginning of 1751, when Thomas Arne published his 'Eight Overtures in 8 Parts', he had become the leading exponent of English dramatic music and the only Englishman who could offer Handel serious competition in the theatre. Arne's 'Eight Overtures' belongs to a tradition of making the instrumental introductions of vocal works available for concert use and divide into two types. Nos 1, 2,4,6,7 and 9 are examples of the older French type that was invented by Lully, was used in England from the 1680s onwards and is found in the majority of Handel's operas and oratorios. These overtures begin with dignified movements, often marked 'Largo' that have dotted rhythms, sharp dissonances to push the music along, and ornamental 'tirades' to create a sense of excitement. By contrast, overtures Nos 3 and 6 are really Italian sinfonias. This type of overture was developed in the early eighteenth century by Alessandro Scarlatti and his contemporaries, and usually consists of three movements: a bustling fast movement, a soulful slow movement and a minuet. As Arne's examples show, the Italian sinfonia was markedly more modern in musical style than the French overture. The final two overtures; 'Alfred' and 'Thomas and Sally', rarely recorded works, are also examples of the more modern Italian type.

This is the second disc of Moeran's work this month on the Chandos Classics label. The performances under one of the masters of British music are quite superb, and the rich Chandos recording is well up to the best vintage standards for which these Ulster recordings were famous. Recorded in: Ulster Hall, Belfast 7-9 Septemer 1987 (Symphony and Overture), 8-11 March 1988 (Rhapsody) Producer(s) Brian Couzens Sound Engineer(s) Ralph Couzens Philip Couzens (Assistant: Symphony and Overture) Ben Connellan (Assistant: Rhapsody)