The various soloists are a delight to listen to, and handle both powerful and sensitive passages with considerable skill. The orchestras generally play well under their individual conductors but in certain passages the horns/trombones are insecure. The background notes are more than adequate though more could have been said about the works themselves. Something should be said about the new style slim double jewel case used by Vox. The internal leaf is poorly designed and the clips, too weak to hold the discs, break off in transit. (Why redesign when an robust version exists, one wonders?)
The analogue recordings of the 70s are clear with no background noise that usually shows up in recordings of this period. The recording of the Pierné work (from 1978) is disappointing; the acoustics are particularly dry and the higher frequencies are lost. These recordings, like all previous Vox concertos reviewed, are pleasantly balanced for piano. The recording venues are not given in the notes.
-- MusicWeb International (Raymond Walker, August 2001)
...Ricci's performance of the Adagio [from the Spohr Concertante] could not be bettered and he has a worthy partner in Susanna Mildonian... Louis de Froment is an admirable accompanist and the recording...is admirably clear and well balanced.
-- Gramophone [6/1979, reviewing an LP release of the Spohr]
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The chromatic harp is an idiosyncratic and, outside certain simple formulae, difficult instrument to write for; it has also been hard for it to escape from its 'romantic' image. Think of the harp, think of arpeggios (isn't that what the word signifies?), and those traversed with a sweep of the hand are inevitably colourful because you can't do it with a simple triad. Harp concertos have never been numerous and, other than Mozart and Handel, have come and gone like recorded ships in the night. Glière's has survived but Zabaleta's account of Reinecke's has long gone (DG 138 853, 11/63). Hard to realize the Glihre was written as late as 1939 —broad but fairly commonplace tunes, ultraconservative structure and language, arpeggios galore are its lot, music to relax and dream to. Michel is a fine harpist and her Glibre fully matches Ellis's older and less crisply recorded version on Decca, but neither can transmute the music's pewter to gold. The Reinecke is a more demonstrative and developed work, not written 'Out of its time', exploiting the resources of the harp in both solo and subsidiary roles, the flanking movements with cyclic connections.
The slow movement is exceptionally beautiful, the opening theme given by harp and trombone in hushed unison, and later, in ethereal harmonies on the harp with quiet responses from the strings. Michel presses a little ahead of her colleagues at times (notably the unisoni trombone) but generally benefits from skilful orchestration, sensitive support and well balanced recording. Written for a 'commoner' instrument the Reinecke might have become an oft-heard standard in the repertoire- it may still find favour with anyone following my advice to buy this recording.
-- Gramophone [4/1980, reviewing the LP release of the Gliere and Reinecke concertos]
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The novelty for me—and I daresay it may be for others too—was Roussel's Serenade of 1925, refreshing music that while keeping well clear of profundities, is yet most elegantly fashioned, urbane and full of wry charm. Here you will find the Melos Ensemble more smiling and certainly more kaleidescopic in colour. The Turnabout team are a bit more serious about the musical argument, a bit less bemused by effects of tone colouring. The flautist, Wilhelm Schwegler, also unfortunately has to breathe, whereas Richard Adeney's instrument (I presume it is Adeney) miraculously seems to play itself without audible intakes of air. It is Adeney's tonal bloom, his wider range of dynamics and colour and more malleable phrasing that in the first place succeeds in making Debussy's sonata sound more beguiling than the cheaper version, and especially in the opening Pastorale—considered by many critics no less seductive than the famous L'apres-midi. In this movement the Turnabout team do not react subtly and sensitively enough to detail, whereas the Melos are constantly reading between the lines and yielding rhythmically to this and that. But perhaps you could argue that the graver pulse chosen by the Germans for the Minuetto emphasizes its archaic, hieratic quality. I also thought they manage to define individual notes a bit more precisely in the finale than the Melos, who are sometimes a bit too impressionistic in their fluidity for this movement, where Debussy, "Musicien Francais", is very definitely looking back to seventeenth-and eighteenthcentury French classicism.
The performance I enjoyed most was the old, familiar Ravel from the Endres Quartet with Helga Storck, Konrad Hampe and Gerd Starke. The music, of course, is much less equivocal than the Debussy, and these players respond to its sensuous languor and tingling darts with more immediacy than I detected anywhere else on this record.
-- Joan Chissell, Gramophone [2/1969, reviewing the LP release of the Debussy, Ravel, and Roussel works]
The ensemble Hexagon (Susan Rotholz, flute; Alan Kay, clarinet; Matt Dine, oboe; Chris Komer, French horn; Michael Finn, bassoon; and James Winn, piano) begins its French odyssey in a most unusual way. Are these six players eating dessert before dinner by beginning their program with a trifle they often use as an encore, the last movement from Jean Françaix's L'Heure du berger? Well, perhaps: the remainder of the music on this disc is frequently of a much more serious bent, but the ensemble plays with such élan, so elegantly and yet with such a spirit of fun that you can't help but be swept up in the parade. The concluding Saint-Saëns Tarantella is delivered with similar good cheer and a light touch, nicely book-ending the disc.
But what comes between is no less impressive. The raucous opening and closing moments of the Poulenc Sextet echo the mood of the Françaix (and also show off the group's fantastic technical skills), and the players never lose the emotional threads of the middle Divertissement, though they twist and turn through segments that are alternately dreamy and sharp-tongued. Saint-Saëns' Caprice, written while the composer was on tour in Russia for the czarina, is a strange, meandering piece that never quite manages to cohere--but it still offers the players a chance to show off that lovely, creamy tone.
The Poulenc trio features some impressive performances, particularly Finn's extraordinarily crisp delivery in the opening Presto, Dine's gracefully singing tone in the Andante, and Winn's spiky jabs in the concluding Rondo. Albert Roussel's Divertissement flows beautifully, played at a wistful tempo and with seamless lines. The sound is ideally balanced between the players, something of a feat considering how tricky it can be to mike winds. I wish that these powerhouse players had a more expanded repertoire at their disposal; this recording is a real treat. --Anastasia Tsioulcas, ClassicsToday.com
