PAVLOVA Monolog. Old New York Nostalgia. Sulamith: Ballet Suite ? Yarolsav Kransnikov (vn); Rossen Milanov, cond; Moscow PO ? NAXOS 8.557674 (73:57)


Much of this program falls into the category of light classical, or pops music. Alla Pavlova, Moscow born and trained, now a resident of New York City, writes well-constructed material that is drenched in nostalgia, and yet each work on this program has a distinct profile. Monolog is an homage to the composer?s music-loving father, an amateur violinist. It is sweet and short, in just the right proportions; the brevity of the piece keeps the sentimentality of the music from welling over into sappiness. Old New York Nostalgia is also, at first blush, too simple and relentlessly tonal to have any lasting impact, and yet there is an integrity and good old-fashioned craft at the core of this writing that draws the listener in, and even encourages repeat hearings. Her memories tend to be sweet with little bitterness; even the ?Lullaby for the Twins,? a 9/11 tribute, oddly skirts any intense emotions.


The centerpiece of the program is Sulamith , a ballet suite based on the Russian writer Alexandre Krupin?s tale of a love affair between King Solomon and one of his servants, the eponymous young waif. The oriental flavor of the music brings to mind Rimsky and Scheherazade , less the soaring sumptuousness. That?s the rub; Pavlova, in all of the music on this CD, seems determined to keep her emotional burners on low, even as she flirts with coy melodrama. Her symphonies, which have also been recorded by Naxos, may tell a different story. Certainly, her voice is intriguing enough to merit an audition.


Rossen Milanov is a young conductor of Bulgarian origin and seems to be one of the more promising talents of his generation. He has become highly admired in Philadelphia, as the associate conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, where he has consistently displayed a sensitive ear for color and dramatic shape, which are appropriate attributes in this music. The Moscow ensemble is gently sonorous, warmly sympathetic to the music.


FANFARE: Peter Burwasser

Choices, choices! Ole Kristian Ruud’s superb Grieg box on BIS was and remains a reference for this music, and it is just a smidgen more technically polished than these otherwise excellent performances. However, Engeset has a couple of points in his favor that may weigh significantly with collectors who don’t want to lay out the funds for both eight-CD sets (I did, and I don’t regret it). First, Engeset features even more orchestral music than Grieg actually wrote. To be fair, everyone does. The Norwegian Dances, for example, were orchestrated by Hans Sitt, and there are other short works scored by everyone from Anton Seidl to Johan Halvorsen.

Engeset, however, offers two welcome novelties: three of the Slatter orchestrated by Oistein Sommerfeldt, and most interesting of all, the massive Ballade for piano arranged for large orchestra by 20th century Norwegian composer Geirr Tveitt. This massively scored transcription really brings out the music’s tragic power, and it’s very intensely performed by Engeset and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. The other advantage that Engeset has over Ruud is a finer soloist for the piano concerto in Havard Gimse. Noriko Ogawa, on BIS, is perfectly fine as far as she goes, but Gimse goes quite a bit farther in terms of imaginative phrasing and tone color.

Otherwise, the two sets are very equally matched. Both conductors sound equally at home in the music, with versions of the Symphony, Norwegian Dances, Old Norwegian Romance with Variations, and Symphonic Dances that are equally persuasive and equally well performed. The Peer Gynt incidental music comes complete on both sets, and is played, sung, and spoken to the hilt. Vocal soloists (Inger Dam-Jensen in the Six Orchestral Songs) are fully involved and fully comparable. In most of the shorter pieces, direct comparison often reveals timings within a few seconds of each other (Bell Ringing is an exception, with Engeset notably slower than Ruud). What the heck, just get both.

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Myroslav Skoryk holds the title of People’s Artist of Ukraine and is one of his country’s outstanding composers. Both the Cello Concerto and the Seventh Violin Concerto combine bittersweet lyricism with explosive dynamic contrasts. With its swinging rhythms and folk music pungency the Carpathian Concerto is one of Skoryk’s most engaging and popular works. The pensive Melody for strings propelled him to the forefront of Ukrainian music, while the slapstick in his transcription of Paganini’s Caprice No. 19 reveals the composer’s humorous side. These live recordings were made at Myroslav Skoryk’s 75th anniversary concerts in Odessa.

MOERAN Overture for a Masque. In the Mountain Country . Rhapsodies Nos. 1 and 2. Rhapsody in F? 1 • JoAnn Falletta, cond; 1 Benjamin Frith (pn); Ulster O • NAXOS 8.573106 (57:06)


Vernon Handley, a conductor whose service to British music should be praised in the same breath as that of Adrian Boult (but too seldom was in his lifetime), recorded these works with the Ulster Orchestra for the Chandos label between 1987 and 1989. This was the first integral set of the three rhapsodies, and very fine it is, too—still a significant part of Anglo-Irish composer Ernest John Moeran’s discography, split onto two mid-price Chandos reissues. Now, 25 years later, the orchestra revisits this repertoire, under the direction of its American principal conductor JoAnn Falletta.


The Rhapsody No. 1 in F Major is a student work. It was completed in 1922 after Moeran had returned wounded from World War I to finish his studies at the Royal College of Music with John Ireland, to whom it is dedicated. It and In the Mountain Country , a rhapsody in all but name, are works written under the spell of folksong. Moeran had resumed his collecting of such songs while composing these two pieces, and though the themes he uses are original, they could easily pass as traditional. The other major influences on these, and in fact on all of the works presented here, are the music of Frederick Delius, Jean Sibelius, and friend Peter Warlock, and—perhaps most importantly—the picturesque landscapes of the east of both Ireland and England. The blend creates a bucolic lyricism and nostalgic tonality which makes him the target of those who sneer at the so-called “pastoral” school of English composition. This is a label Vaughan Williams’s reputation has been able to rise above, but not so much that of Moeran. Yes it is tuneful, and sometime the influences show too much, but it is hard to understand why this beautifully crafted, colorfully orchestrated, and immediately engaging music should be so neglected. It cannot be, even in the more youthful works, for want of refinement or emotional depth. And the two later works, the Rhapsody in F? for piano and orchestra and the Overture for a Masque , though written for the more populist needs of wartime audiences, are works of substance that achieve their audience appeal with real artistry.


The least obscure of the works on this program is the Rhapsody No. 2 in E Major, written just two years after the first, and notably the more mature work. It still sounds rather like Delius—that common criticism of Moeran’s earlier works—but the succession of great tunes is stitched together with impressive skill. Adrian Boult’s more expansive and Impressionistic reading for Lyrita has been my favorite, but I find that Falletta’s cooler and somewhat swifter approach—less Delian, it might be noted—with its emphasis on the characterful wind writing, brings out a delightful Celtic swagger. I think Falletta’s may be my new favorite.


Otherwise, if I was looking for differences between the two complete rhapsody editions—none of them all that significant—it would be that Falletta is consistently more direct, a quality to which these pieces respond well. Handley is inclined to emphasize dynamic and tempo contrasts, and to bring out an undercurrent of melancholy. The result, at slightly slower tempos, is more thoughtful but less engagingly jaunty. The Ulster Orchestra is, if anything, more polished and expressive than its counterpart of a quarter-century ago. Soloist Benjamin Firth is not as assertive in the Rhapsody in F? as Margaret Fingerhut was for Handley, in part the work of the engineers who integrate him more into the orchestral texture. That, and his somewhat less fulsome approach to the part, is at one with Falletta’s easygoing approach, and delivers much in the way of subtle beauty while yielding little in exuberance when the score demands it. I welcome both approaches, and am thrilled to have both conductors’ readings in my collection. This new disc joins the equally fine Falletta/Ulster release on Naxos of the cello concerto, serenade, and Two Pieces for Small Orchestra . Both discs are highly recommended.


FANFARE: Ronald E. Grames

Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release

Shostakovich’s two Piano Concertos span a period of almost thirty years. The youthful First Piano Concerto is a masterful example of eclecticism, its inscrutable humour and seriousness allied to virtuoso writing enhanced by the rôle for solo trumpet. Written as a birthday present for his son Maxim, the Second Piano Concerto is light-spirited with a hauntingly beautiful slow movement. With the permission of the composer’s family, Boris Giltburg has arranged the exceptionally dark, deeply personal and powerful String Quartet No. 8, thereby establishing a major Shostakovich solo piano composition.



REVIEWS:


We have no shortage of excellent versions of the two Shostakovich piano concertos, including Igoshina’s on CPO and Marc-André Hamelin’s on Hyperion. Here is another. These are big, bold, in-your-face performances that find a wider range of expression in both works than you might have believed possible. Much of the credit for this belongs to Vasily Petrenko as well, who continues his series of top-notch Shostakovich recordings for Naxos.

In the First Concerto, particularly the outer movements, Giltburg attacks the zany, theater music themes with unbridled ferocity, finding a bitter edge of desperation for all the music’s wackiness. The bright, up-front sonics and Rhys Owens’ piercing trumpet complement the approach, and there is also some remarkably precise ensemble playing from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic strings. It’s an exhausting cliff-hanger of a performance.

Giltburg and Petrenko’s vision of the theoretically light and easy Second Piano Concerto is even more striking. From the dry, perky winds at the start to the positively cataclysmic first movement development section, this is clearly a performance that has tremendous character–one which finds plenty of menace beneath the music’s breezy, sometimes comical, sometimes sweetly romantic exterior. It makes you sit up and listen with fresh ears, truly.

The two concertos really are two short for a single disc, and finding appropriate couplings is always an issue. This is where things get really interesting. Giltburg has made transcriptions of some of Shostakovich’s music for string quartet, the Waltz third movement from the Second Quartet, and the entire Eighth Quartet. He evidently had permission from Shostakovich’s family, which means nothing, as family members are usually terrible guardians of their illustrious ancestral legacies.

The Waltz works well enough, but the Eighth Quartet is an impossible piece to transcribe for the keyboard. This is string music, plain and simple. The sustained notes in the fourth movement simply cannot be reproduced on the piano, although with clever pedaling and a sensible tempo Giltburg almost pulls it off. The savage second movement sounds positively tame here: evidently it’s much easier to push a string quartet to its limits than it is a Fazioli.

Curiously, however, it’s impossible to call the performance as such a failure. It’s quite moving in its way, and if you know the original, either as a quartet or in its chamber symphony version, you can’t help but come away with a renewed appreciation of Shostakovich’s genius for matching the music to the (original) medium. But please, let’s not have any more of these experiments. One is more than enough. A great disc.

– ClassicsToday(David Hurwitz; 10/10)

Giltburg has all the agility, power and expressive intensity Shostakovich’s piano concertos demand, plus the temperament to negotiate their mercurial shifts of mood. Every phrase is imaginatively colored or nuanced, and never out of gimmicky point making, always because he has something worth saying. And he has found like-minded partners in the RLPO and Petrenko, who not only follow and support him superbly but also respond and provoke where appropriate.

– Gramophone

What is so appealing about this record is that the Boris Giltburg has rethought the works through the prism of the composer’s experiences. The first concerto is wonderfully skittish, a series of melodic in-jokes and exchanges with the orchestra. The second concerto, determinedly frisky, is played with a reckless to-hell-with-it abandon. With devastating precision, Giltburg has interpolated between the concertos his own piano reductions of one movement of the second string quartet and the entirety of the eight quartet, contemporaneous with the two piano concertos, exposing the composer’s seditious inner thoughts. This is a constantly illuminating, almost faultless project.

– Norman Lebrecht

Although Couperin is best known today as a composer of harpsichord music, he remained deeply involved in chamber music throughout his career. Les Nations is a vast project in which the virtues of both the French and Italian styles are set next to each other. Each of the four ordres celebrates a Catholic power of Europe – France, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Savoy dynasty of Piedmont – and each is a combination of an Italianate trio sonata, with its free-form virtuosity, and a large-scale and elaborate French dance suite. Juilliard Baroque brings together some of the world’s most respected and accomplished early music instrumentalists for this invigorating program.

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Review:

All eight players are totally absorbed in the style. Their often dense ornamentation never sounds calculated or contrived; their rhythmic flow in slower movements has a captivating insouciance, relaxed, gently fluid. This is French playing that would be hard to better.

– BBC Music Magazine

This is the first of what one hopes will be a complete set of the Michael Haydn symphonies. If so, this release is a more than auspicious start, which will give much pleasure, especially in these idiomatic performances (on modern instruments).

For all that Michael lurks in the shadow cast by his brother, recent performances – and it is welcome to have so many more, especially on CD – have made it clear that he was no minor figure, but an accomplished composer in his own right. His contemporaries had little doubt of his stature. Although his relationship with Leopold Mozart was strained, he had a close friendship with Wolfgang, who appears to have been influenced by his music, and certainly promoted it in Vienna. A common feature between the two, heard to good effect in these symphonies, is a charming gift for writing effectively for the woodwinds.

Nor should these symphonies be considered less pleasurable than those by Josef. If there is a difference, it is not in musical facility nor in ingenious orchestration. If Michael does not quite plumb the same depths, there are similarities in construction and in the unusual effects. Listen for example, to the Rondeau of the C major work (track 8) as a splendid instance of confident, even exuberant, invention. There is an interesting study to be done on the extent to which Josef influenced his brother and vice-versa. They corresponded but rarely met during the forty years of Michael’s time in Salzburg, yet there are similarities in approach. I sometimes forget which brother I am hearing, though Michael was less of a pioneer. Also, he had a strong preference for major keys, as here (only Symphony No 20, not on this disc, is in a minor key), which slightly limited his emotional range. His gift is for the exciting.

This CD will give enormous pleasure, and perhaps encourage wider performance. Gallois has the music’s measure and the orchestra plays very well. It is interesting to make comparisons with Bohdan Warchal’s set of 20 symphonies on CPO (CPO 9995912), though the D major is not included there (but it is on a recording from the same label conducted by Johannes Goritzki – CPO 9991792) . The CPO set is a joy – so is this.

I look forward very much to the remainder of this series. It would be a wonderful if Naxos turned its attention to a complete set of the Masses. Josef thought Michael’s finer than his own, not without justice. From time to time a new recording appears (Hungaraton have shown commitment to the cause), but there is so much to explore.

– MusicWeb International (Michael Wilkinson)

Sinfonia in G major (Perger 16) (Symphony No. 25)
Sinfonia in D major (Perger 21) (Symphony No. 30)
Sinfonia in C major (Perger 19) (Symphony No. 28)
Sinfonia in A major (Perger 15) (Symphony No. 24)

Based on Shakespeare’s most famous romantic play, Prokofiev’s realization of Romeo and Juliet as a full-length narrative ballet was audacious in its day. It was written during a period of artistic turmoil under a Soviet regime in which arguments raged over such fundamental aspects as the choice between a happy or tragic ending. Famous movements such as the ‘Dance of the Knights’ have helped maintain Romeo and Juliet as Prokofiev’s best-loved stage work. Marin Alsop’s acclaimed cycle of Prokofiev’s Symphonies has been described as “an outstanding achievement” by BBC Music Magazine. Alsop is an inspiring and powerful voice in the international music scene who passionately believes that “music has the power to change lives.” She is recognized across the world for her innovative programming and for her deep commitment to education and the development of audiences of all ages.

REVIEW:

This recording is typical of Alsop’s clear-headed approach, revealing her thorough mastery of details, balanced phrasing, close attention to the orchestral sound, and fidelity to the score, which provides many challenges in its episodic structure. This first-rate performance may remind listeners of the classic complete recordings by Previn and Ozawa, and even though those recordings are still readily available, Alsop’s shows that Romeo and Juliet can still inspire a fine interpretation in the digital era, making this recording essential listening for Prokofiev fans.

– AllMusicGuide.com (B. Sanderson)

If you enjoy fluent, finely crafted classical period symphonies then this well-played, well-recorded disc is for you. Kozeluch was one of a constellation of Czech symphonies active in eighteenth-century Vienna. His Bohemian roots show in his music’s innate tunefulness, as well as his free use of woodwind instruments. The only thing lacking is that flash of genius, those moments of the unexpected that make Haydn so memorable.

The four works here are nicely varied. The Symphony in C major (No. 6) includes trumpets and timpani. That in G minor has three movements; all of the others have four. Two works, the D major and C major symphonies, begin with impressive slow introductions. Development sections are fully worked out, and the slow movements really sing. Marek Stilic leads lively, smartly paced performances, and gets fine playing from the ensemble. This is music well worth getting to know, and I look forward to further releases in the series.

– ClassicsToday (David Hurwitz)

A highly decorated composer in Soviet Russia, Reinhold Gli�re maintained a low political profile and a conservative but astonishingly inventive melodic style. His interest in national harmonies and folk-music emerges in the Twelve Album Leaves, and his remarkably important contribution to cello repertoire is demonstrated both in his mastery of small forms in the Duets Op 39, and a unique ability to create orchestral sonorities in the Duets Op 53, a rare example of an original cycle for the delightful combination of two cellos.

Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s two Piano Concertos form a contrasting pair. Concerto No 1, written in 1927, is a vivid and witty example of his romantic spirit, exquisite melodies and rich yet transparent orchestration. Concerto No 2, composed a decade later, is a darker, more dramatic and virtuosic work. The deeply-felt and dreamlike slow movement and passionate finale are tinged with bleak moments of sombre agitation, suggestive of unfolding tragic events with the imminent introduction of the Fascist Racial Laws that led Castelnuovo-Tedesco to seek exile in the USA in 1939. The Four Dances from ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’, part of the composer’s recurring fascination for the art of Shakespeare, are atmospheric, richly characterised and hugely enjoyable. This is their first performance and recording.

R E V I E W:

CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO Piano Concertos: Nos. 1, 2. Love’s Labour’s Lost: 4 Dances • Alessandro Marangoni (pn); Andrew Mogrelia, cond; Malmö SO • NAXOS 8.572823 (76: 43)


Naxos’s two discs of this composer’s Shakespeare overtures really turned a lot of heads, mine included, a couple of years ago. Therefore, it was inevitable that the label would add to its Castelnuovo-Tedesco discography. The two piano concertos are not new to CD. However, as happens with greater frequency these days, alternative recordings have either gone out of print or are prohibitively expensive imports. This new release makes a lot of sense then, and it has been made all the more attractive by the addition of the four dances from Love’s Labour’s Lost , in not only their first recording but also their first performance!


That’s probably a good place to start. Castelnuovo-Tedesco composed these in 1953, but apparently Boosey & Hawkes, to which they were offered, did not publish them, and neither did Ricordi. Thus, they remained in manuscript, and unheard, until they were lent by the composer’s niece, Lisbeth Castelnuovo-Tedesco, to Alessandro Marangoni, who prepared a performing edition. This utterly delightful music should not have waited 60 years for a performance. The composer’s affinity for Shakespeare, already demonstrated in the concert overtures, also comes forward here. There is a gently ironic, somewhat Ravel-like and somewhat cinematic approach to old dance forms here. A lush Sarabande (for the King of Navarre) is followed by a mocking Gavotte (for the Princess of France) and a quietly loquacious Spanish Dance (for Don Adriano de Armado). Last is a Russian Dance—the flavoring is subtle—which corresponds to the scene in Shakespeare’s comedy in which the King and his scholarly companions disguise themselves as Muscovites to woo the Princess and her three ladies. Again, it floors me that this music had to wait so long to be heard.


A similar situation applies to the Piano Concerto No. 2. The original score appears to have been lost, but Marangoni found a copy in the Library of Congress and prepared a performing edition of the piano part. (The orchestral parts were found somewhere else—talk about pieces and parts!) Both of the concertos are an unusual marriage of virtuoso writing and Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s relatively relaxed compositional style. The second concerto is the darker of the two; it was composed in 1936–37, shortly before the composer, who was a Jew, left Italy, ending up in Hollywood. It is, however, not a tragic work, but it lacks the lightness and wit of the other two works on this CD. For me, its romantic gestures don’t add up to a lot, given the not very distinctive quality of the melodic writing. Also, Castelnuovo-Tedesco’s longer works don’t have the structural strength of the Shakespeare overtures, for example, and this also contributes to the sense that the music is always going somewhere but never quite arriving. It is, by the way, proudly tonal. I am reminded of Respighi’s comment, around this time, that “dissonance has its place as a medium of tone-color, and polytonality has important uses as a means of expression, but for their own sake, they are completely abhorrent to me.”


So, as suggested, the Piano Concerto No. 1 (1927), which opens the CD, is less moody. As Graham Wade writes in his booklet note, it “was written in a spirit of optimism and ebullience.” Like the second concerto, its middle movement is a Romanza, although here, its introspection is less merited, and perhaps driven simply by the need for contrast. As I relisten to both of these concertos, I think the best way to describe them would be “Nino Rota meets Rachmaninoff,” although the First, in particular, is less impressive than either of those composers usually managed to be.


Away from the piano bench, Marangoni appears to be putting unusual effort forward on behalf of the composer, and I have no reason to believe that his pianism is holding either of these concertos back. He seems to enjoy their romantic lushness, and he has the fingers to make the most of that quality. Andrew Mogrelia, a familiar name from many Naxos releases, is associated with ballet music, and so it is not surprising that color and transparency are two strong features of these recordings. The Swedish orchestra is just fine, as is the engineering.


This is most desirable, I think, for the 16 minutes allotted to the dances from Love’s Labour’s Lost. I don’t reject the possibility, however, that the two piano concertos might grow on me, in time.


FANFARE: Raymond Tuttle

If you want to hear some very well-played Sarasate violin music, performed on a disc devoted solely to that composer's Spanish Dances, then this new release from Chinese violinist Tianwa Yang and Naxos will do the job splendidly. Yang was in her 17th year in 2004 when she recorded these stylish, dazzling showpieces--chamber works that also contain an inherent sensual, sultry physicality that requires a soloist with a keen sense of the rhythms and a true feeling for the passion--sometimes playful, sometimes athletic, sometimes erotic--embodied in these dances. Virtuoso they certainly are--and Yang delivers in this aspect of her performances; that is, her technique, which helped her win the prize of "Best Young Violinist in China" in 2004, is sharply developed, confident, and articulate.

Highlights include the energetic, triple-time Jota Aragonesa Op. 27, with its insistent down-beat, varied melodic twists and turns (including a section in harmonics), and sudden fiery outburst at the end. "Zapateado" (Spanish Dance Op. 23 No. 2) also is very exciting in terms of Yang's command of various bowing and fingering techniques--but this also is one place where she shows her occasional tendency to play under pitch, especially (and most unfortunately) on many of the harmonics (here and elsewhere). Because the pitch of unstopped harmonics (which many of these are) is determined by the tuning of the open string and cannot be altered simply by a fine finger adjustment, it suggests that Yang's violin was not always precisely in tune with the piano. At other times (in several places in the Op. 23 No. 1 ("Playera") an occasional note lies a bit flat at the end of a phrase, seemingly due to momentary inattentiveness, not to any fundamental failure of technique.


Aside from these spotty lapses, when you compare Yang's interpretations, which are basically solid and technically very impressive, with other versions, you realize the limitations of her emotional, experiential input to the pieces' expressive aspects. There's plenty of fire but not much heat; and there's undeniable vitality but the seductive, romantic spirit is missing.


For the most accomplished modern performances of many of the works on Yang's program, turn to James Ehnes' CBC recording, released the same year Yang's was made, which also includes works by Wieniawski. Ehnes seems to have thought more carefully about (or at least sensed) proper tempos relative to the particular nature of a given dance--his slower Playera, for instance, and considerably faster Jota Navarra and Zapateado, in each case ideally capturing the innate spirit of the dance in question. Ehnes also supplies the romantic depth and understanding these pieces need--a knowing turn of phrase, a clever shift of dynamics, a particular rhythmic emphasis here, a pulling away there. It's great stuff, and the Wieniawski selections are just as good.


The sound on the two discs also offers different choices--more edgy and gritty for Yang, making no compromise in presenting the instrument's natural character, and warmer, brighter, a bit more distant for Ehnes, yet no less realistic. Another consideration: Yang's program offers several works difficult or impossible to find elsewhere on disc.
--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Mieczyslaw Weinberg is now recognized as one of the outstanding Russian composers of the second half of the twentieth century. Fêted for his symphonies and string quartets, he also wrote a sequence of Violin Sonatas crucial to the development of his distinctive and elusive musical idiom. Shostakovich's influence is evident in the Third Violin Sonata, as are Jewish melodic elements, while the Fourth Violin Sonata is alternately somebre and hectic. His masterpiece is the Fifth Violin Sonata, symphonic in scale but subtle in form, and containing some of his most affecting writing.

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REVIEW:

Weinberg has his own way of moving between moods, is often serious, and can be suave, gruff or playful. He is estimably served by the thoughtful and responsive Russian violinist Grigory Kalinovsky, who brings clarity and variety of tone to the music, and is in turn strongly supported by Tatiana Goncharova. Together they form a terrific partnership able to project this repertoire with unstinting verve and delicacy.

– Classical Ear (Ivor Solomons)

Arthur Fagen already demonstrated his credentials as a Martinu conductor with his generally excellent complete symphony cycle for Naxos, and this first installment of the piano concertos also is very fine. The Third concerto, Martinu's largest, is a magnificent work that Rudolf Firkusny made his own. Giorgio Koukl's performance is quite different. Whereas Firkusny is more "romantic", shaping phrases expressively and adjusting dynamics to create a more lyrical emphasis, Koukl, at slightly slower tempos, emphasizes the music's neo-classicism, with punchy rhythms and a drier overall sonority. Both approaches are perfectly legitimate when the playing is this good, and Koukl's interpretations give all three works a certain consistency of style, from the relatively early Concertino (not in fact all that small-scale) to the late Concerto No. 5--a sadly underrated piece that hardly deserves its neglect.

The Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonic, like many second-tier Eastern European ensembles, won't win any awards for seductive tonal allure, particularly compared to the support that the Czech Philharmonic offers Firkusny. But these players know the music, project it well, and have the composer's perpetually syncopated rhythms in their bones. The slightly dry but very clear sonics complement the rhythmic clarity of the conducting and the solo playing, and earn this disc an easy recommendation.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

The music of Bohuslav Martinů, whose complete solo piano works have also been recorded by Giorgio Koukl for Naxos, can ring like bells, shimmer like a mirage or pulse with sheer rhythmic vitality as is the case with these three piano concertos, where high drama, brilliant tunes, captivating colouristic effects and tongue-in-cheek frivolity all find their place. Volume 1 – Piano Concertos Nos. 3 & 5 has been acclaimed for its ‘Buoyant and exuberant performances’ (Gramophone Editor’s Choice) and as ‘an auspicious debut [and] extremely well played’ (International Record Review).

This performance goes right to the top. Not since the amazing mono Ancerl recording has there been a version of this work of such intensity, such expressive urgency, and (yes, believe it or not) such incredible orchestral playing. It's impossible to praise the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic enough: they put their London colleagues to shame. The cellos and basses have a dark, tactile presence in pianissimo not heard since the old Kondrashin Melodiya recording. The horns play the daylights out of their solos in the first and third movements, while Petrenko has the violins sustaining, articulating, and phrasing the climax of the first movement with a passion and grit that's beyond praise.

Indeed, as an essay in Shostakovich conducting alone this performance deserves an honored place in every collection. Petrenko has the players digging into the second movement with unbridled ferocity at an ideally swift tempo. He ferrets out every subtle detail of scoring in the crepuscular Allegretto while never permitting the music to drag. His finale has just the right manic high spirits, and he clarifies the DSCH motive in the timpani at the end better than anyone else ever has. It's all captured in gloriously vivid, present sonics by the Naxos engineers. Thrilling, perfect, essential--a magnificent achievement and hands down the modern reference recording.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Peerless musicianship.

This superb CD proves that time travel is possible. To listen to these outstanding performances by Ensemble Leones of Neidhart's beautiful music and witty, sophisticated, sometimes outrageous poetry is to be transported back eight hundred years to an incredible period in the history of music and civilisation in general. Everyone who cares about that heritage should hear this recording.
 
All the Neidhart songs in Leones' recital, both music and texts, are taken from the so-called Frankfurt Neidhart Fragment, dated to around 1300 and housed at Frankfurt-am-Main University. The eight surviving pages of a larger manuscript reveal - at least to the patient and trained eye of a scholar like Lewon - six songs by Neidhart, five with more or less complete melodies. This is the first complete recording and performance, made possible by Lewon's painstaking reconstruction of the surviving material, necessitating in one case the borrowing of appropriate melodies from elsewhere. The results may or may not be entirely authentic, but the songs are compellingly evocative and utterly convincing. The instruments employed by Leones are recent reproductions but they sound terrific, especially when played with the delicacy and intuition of Lewon and Romain.
 
Thanks to Lewon and his ensemble - whose ranks swell or shrink according to the current project, incidentally - 21st century audiences can enjoy Neidhart's peerless musicianship, specifically his maverick take on the generally more deferent Minnesang tradition. His Dörperlieder ('bumpkin songs') take the themes of the usual hohe Minne ('high love') - the courtly ideals of love from afar and chivalry - and transfer them to rough rustic settings. The real joke is on the gentry who laugh at the buffoonery and coarseness of the peasants in his songs - they are the implied object of Neidhart's insinuations and sarcasm.
 
It was a bold decision by Leones to perform the nearly ten-minute long song 'Ich claghe de blomen' without instrumental support - over 100 lines in nine stanzas - but such is the power of Neidhart's music and poetry that time flies past. In any case, the alternation of male and female voice, as well as the interpolation of purely instrumental items, makes listening to this recital as varied an experience as it is aesthetic.
 
The CD ends with a rather out-of-place song by Adam de la Halle, billed as a 'bonus track' and certainly sounding like an afterthought. The preceding song by the great Walther von der Vogelweide is at least no anachronism, but its inclusion is not really explained in the booklet.
 
As the notes explain, the German of Neidhart is not strictly Middle High German (MHG) but a Low version of the same, reflecting where the texts were written, and explaining why some of the sounds are reminiscent of modern Dutch. At any rate, Neidhart's language should prove at least as intelligible to modern Low German speakers as Geoffrey Chaucer's is to those familiar with today's English.
 
On the subject of pronunciation, both Marc Lowen and Els Janssens-Vanmunster sound entirely authentic, and their excellent diction only heightens the listener's joy. Their singing style is folk-like but not 'rustic', emotional without affectation, plaintive or humorous as appropriate without recourse to melodrama. Practically impeccable, in other words.
 
In his interesting notes Neidhart expert Marc Lewon points out that the 'von Reuental' still frequently attached to his name is erroneous, founded on "a nineteenth-century misapprehension". Curiously he, and Naxos in their title, set about perpetuating another of those with a mistranslation of 'Reuental' - 'riuwental' in MHG - as "vale of tears". In MHG tears is 'trene', 'Tränen' in modern German, whereas 'riuwe' equates with modern German 'Jammer' or 'Schmerz' - the minnesinger's 'lament' or 'pain'. The Nithart of these poems is a knight, not a cry-baby!
 
In his acknowledgements Lewon also thanks the proof-reader for checking his translations from German into English, but some of the phraseology is decidedly shaky for all that. For example, "in his Bavarian sphere" for "in seiner bairischen Heimat" ('in his Bavarian homeland'); "but from which the German Minnesang of Neidhart’s time was yet but far"; or "Neidhart only played the fool" for "Neidhart [...] spielte nur vordergründig den Narren" ('Neidhart only played the fool ostensibly'). Sometimes the language is so inapt as to misrepresent the original: "They show the distinctive trademarks of Neidhart’s oeuvre and touch on many aspects of his lyrical portfolio, featuring content, form, and musical modes typical to his work" is only tangentially equivalent to the German, quite apart from the linguistic horror that is "lyrical portfolio". Punctuation is also inconsistent and sometimes appears almost randomly applied.
 
Full sung texts, with translations into modern German and English, are downloadable for free from the Naxos website. The German translations are good, the English somewhat clumsier, with numerous misjudgements of term and register, as well as a few, sometimes meaning-changing typos - but perfectly serviceable nevertheless.
 
This CD was briefly reviewed here last year, when Naxos released it as a download only. Pace that review, no harp is used in this recording.
 
-- Byzantion, MusicWeb International

From mysterious moonlit night to joyous sunlit day, this recording runs the gamut of Alfredo Casella’s huge stylistic range. Notte di maggio (‘A Night in May’), composed in the wake of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, is Casella at his most radical, while the delightful ‘Divertimento’ Scarlattiana finds him at his most relaxed, spicing up themes from Domenico Scarlatti’s keyboard sonatas—in the manner of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella. Between them comes Casella’s Cello Concerto, its style influenced by the ‘baroque magnificence of Rome’, with a finale the composer called ‘the flight of the improved bumblebee’.

Performing on early 19th-century pianos from the Frederick Historic Piano Collection, competition prizewinners Dmitry Rachmanov, a Juilliard graduate, and Cullan Bryant, a graduate of Manhattan School of Music, explore the interrelationships between the keyboard music of Beethoven and his principal teachers in this fascinating double-album of rarities for piano four-hands, culminating in a revelatory account of the Great Fugue in Beethoven’s own keyboard arrangement. The distinctive sonorities of these highly esteemed period instruments transport the listener back to the time when Beethoven, his teachers or his own pupils, may have performed this music themselves for the first time.

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Mass in g. The Voice out of the Whirlwind 1. Valiant-for-truth. Three Choral Hymns 1. Nothing Is Here for Tears 1. A Vision of Aeroplanes 2. The Souls of the Righteous. A Choral Flourish 1 • Timothy Brown, cond; 1 Ashok Gupta (org); 2 James McVinnie (org); Ch of Clare College Cambridge • NAXOS 8.572465 (63:11)


Vaughan Williams is probably my favorite 20th-century composer; I adore virtually every note that he set to paper. (There are admittedly a few clinkers, such as the Piano Concerto). One of the few works of his that heretofore has failed to appeal to me is the Mass in G Minor, which has always seemed pleasant but not particularly distinguished. That has now changed radically with this disc. The moment the Kyrie sounded through my speakers, I sat bolt upright in my chair, slackjawed and dumbfounded at the ethereal, pellucid purity and superb articulation of the singing, the fleet vigor and elegance of the pacing, and the astonishing inventiveness of the composer’s adaptation of Renaissance means to modern ends in the manner of his stupendous Tallis Fantasia . (As in the earlier work, Vaughan Williams again created an antiphonal contrast between a solo quartet and a larger ensemble.)


The experience sent me scrambling to audition every other recording of the Mass on which I could lay my hands, to find out what I previously had been missing. My conclusion is that most recordings err in using far too large a choir and correspondingly slower tempi, resulting in an overly opaque sound that overburdens a finely wrought, delicate score. To bring out properly the neorenaissance character of the music, a smaller ensemble is needed. In Fanfare 26:2 James Miller cited a Cedille CD by the Chicago-based ensemble His Majestie’s Clerkes as his favorite, I suspect (though not explicitly stated) for reasons similar to mine. (Martin Anderson voiced a contrary opinion in 21:6.) However, the acoustic in that recording is extremely reverberant, overly so for my taste, whereas Naxos gets it exactly right, with balanced clarity and depth. The other recordings I have found with a similar approach are an ABC disc with the Trinity College Choir of Melbourne, which uses boy trebles instead of female sopranos (I prefer the distaff voices here), and a Delphian CD with the Laudibus chamber choir and a highly transparent, echt -Renaissance ensemble sound (I find the Clare College Choir a bit livelier and better blended). In sum, this is now the recording of choice for this work.


The other pieces recorded here are performed on a similarly high plane, and have much less competition, especially since some (The Voice out of the Whirlwind, Three Choral Hymns, A Vision of Aeroplanes ) are offered with organ rather than orchestral accompaniment. All are very typical of the composer’s choral works, except for Vision with its exotically spiky and dissonant opening section, evoking the roar of an aircraft squadron by analogy with the prophet Ezekiel’s apocalyptic vision of four winged creatures. The closest thing to a competitor in this combination of repertoire is the Hyperion disc with the Westminster Cathedral Choir, containing the Mass, Valiant for Truth , and Vision , but the Naxos CD is superior in every way. This is also apparently the first recording of Nothing Is Here for Tears , and the only available recording of the Exultate justi . The booklet notes, by the conductor, are excellent; the only flaw in this production is the lack of texts, which, given the density of certain passages, are a necessity even with fine choral diction. A Google search will turn up all of those on line; in addition to that of the traditional Latin Mass, they are:


• The Voice out of the Whirlwind : Job 38:1–10 and 16–17, 40:7–10.


• A Vision of Aeroplanes: Ezekiel 1:4–28.


• The souls of the Righteous : Wisdom of Solomon 3:1–3.


• Exultate justi : Psalms 32:11 and 33:1–4.


• Valiant-for-Truth : The passage regarding that character in the last chapter of The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, beginning, “After this it was noised abroad.”


• Nothing Is Here for Tears : a potted version of lines 1721–40 from Book IV of Paradise Regained by John Milton.


• Three Choral Hymns : German hymn texts (two derived through Martin Luther) translated by Miles Coverdale, beginning “Alleluya. Christe is now rysen agayne,” “Now blessed be thou, Christ Jesu,” and “Come, holy Spirite, most blessed Lorde.”


Aside from this one drawback, this disc has my highest possible recommendation, and is a candidate for the 2010 Want List.


FANFARE: James A. Altena


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Recordings of Vaughan Williams' Mass in G minor don't come along that often--but with this new one, Naxos has two first-rate performances in its catalog, the other with the Elora Festival Singers. That's where the similarity between the two recordings ends, however--and that's a good thing. In fact, this disc is different from most Vaughan Williams choral programs due to its abundance of rarely-heard works.

The two more-familiar items--Valiant-for-truth and the Mass--are performed as well as you'll hear anywhere on disc; the challenging a cappella scoring in both--but especially in the very exposed textures of the Mass--allows us to fully appreciate this choir's ensemble unity and solid intonation. The Mass is among the faster-paced versions on disc, similar to our reference recording (Cedille), but Timothy Brown knows that slower can mean trouble in this work, and he moderates tempo where it counts, most importantly in the Agnus Dei.

Among the lesser-known works, The Voice out of the Whirlwind is one of those grand cathedral anthems with a busy organ accompaniment, fun for all to sing and play, while Nothing is here for tears (written on the death of King George V) is in the best tradition of this composer's unison-voice anthems whose lovely, easily singable hymn-like tunes and well-crafted organ parts are always appreciated by choral directors and choirs. In a completely different universe is the motet A Vision of Aeroplanes, a tour de force for choir and organ (especially for organ!) that sets words from the prophet Ezekiel (the one about the vision of the "wheel within a wheel..."). In the hands of organist James McVinnie and these exceptional singers, the whole fantastic picture comes vividly to life.

Perhaps best of all--and also among the rarely-heard pieces--are the Three Choral Hymns. Although the three-movement work was originally scored for orchestra, Brown and his choir offer what apparently is its first recording with organ accompaniment. It works well, and perhaps in this form it will draw broader attention and more performances.

The Mass always seems difficult to record, and that's true here, with some harshness in the loudest passages and occasional uneven balances between the two choirs and between the choir and quartet of soloists. It's not a big deal, just a peculiar phenomenon that may be related to the particular features of the work's scoring, harmonic structure, and voicing. I also have to mention that for a recording of choral music to come without printed texts, as is the case here (they are only available online), is not ideal, especially when the majority of texts will not be familiar to most listeners. That said, this is an excellent and much needed addition to the Vaughan Williams choral catalog, and fans of the composer will not want to be without it. Strongly recommended.

--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

One of the leading English composers of his generation, Vaughan Williams went some way towards creating a specifically English musical idiom, influenced by his interest in folk-song yet underpinned by a personal vision and language.

The orchestrations are colorful, subtle and brilliant. A joy to hear. Equally delightful is the playing. The Lyon National Orchestra under Jun Märkl captures the subtlety and beauty of tone throughout every piece and the recorded sound is really first rate.

The Debussy Orchestral Works, Vol. 6 from Naxos offers a nice mix of familiar and rare works, all in exquisite orchestrations by musicians who either knew Debussy or admire his works. Debussy himself wrote all of this music for the piano 4 hands. The orchestrations are colorful, subtle and brilliant. A joy to hear. Equally delightful is the playing. The Lyon National Orchestra under Jun Märkl captures the subtlety and beauty of tone throughout every piece and the recorded sound is really first rate. Orchestrating piano music requires an understanding of both keyboard and orchestral techniques in order to rethink the piano music for an ensemble. It requires interpolations that are natural to the spirit of the music without imparting on the orchestra a pianistic left and right hand. These arrangements make the music sound as if it has always been for orchestra.

The selections range from pops concert favorite, Clair de lune, in a luminous classic arrangement by Andre Caplet to Debussy's early Symphony, of which he completed only the first movement, orchestrated by Tony Finno. With Clair de lune we also get the entire Suite bergamasque from which it comes, the other movements colorfully arranged by Gustave Cloez. The total effect of the suite in this orchestral form is much like a ballet score, performed with lyric grace by Lyon musicians. This is a particularly fine and sensitive performance of Clair de lune. This heartstrings pulling performance of moves at a slightly faster pace than some of the others but remains quite lovely within its own world in the suite.

The Symphony is actually rather good. Its swaggering main theme is a bit repetitious but the overall style is much more romantic than impressionist and reminiscent of perhaps d'Indy, Faure or the rarely heard symphony by Dukas. I've heard one other chamber ensemble arrangement of Debussy's sketches and this version for full orchestra by Tony Finno is far and away the best.

Henri Busser's arrangement of the Petite suite, which certainly has much orchestral competition with performances recorded by Martinon, Tortelier, Ansermet, Dutoit and many more is aided here by superb sound quality and excellent, sensitive artistry. Busser's other orchestration is Printemps, a two movement piece with one foot in the late-romantic era and the other feeling around in the new musical impressionism. The music is played with shimmering beauty. Probably the clearest and most sparkling recorded performance of Printemps I've heard.

En blanc et noir, orchestrated by Robin Holloway is not just black and white as the piano key title implies, but quite colorful. The arrangement was commissioned in 2002 by the San Francisco Symphony. The music is more boisterous and exuberant,sounding at times as if it is about to turn toward Debussy's Iberia but with the Spanish atmosphere replaced instead by a somewhat mischievous quality which grows on you with repeated hearings. The last movement Debussy dedicated to "mon ami Strawinsky"‘. With performances that treat the older works as if they were newly discovered and the unknown works with a sense of magic and wonder, this album is definitely a winner.

- Greg La Traille, ArkivMusic.com

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The most compelling item in this collection is En blanc et noir, not only one of Debussy's most advanced instrumental works (composed for two pianos), but the orchestral arrangement sounds closest to the composer himself. Robin Holloway drew upon Debussy's contemporaneous Jeux as a model, with numerous passages in the first and third movements replicating that work's uniquely colorful sound world. In the reflective middle movement Holloway's orchestral dress evokes the dreamy atmosphere of Les parfums de la nuit from Iberia. Jun Märkl and the Orchestre National de Lyon offer a sparking performance, playing the music with real verve, as if they had discovered a heretofore unknown Debussy masterpiece.

Debussy only completed one movement of his proposed Symphony in B minor (1880), and then only as a piano duet. Tony Finno's orchestral arrangement emphasizes the music's Russian influences (it was composed around the time he was employed by Tchaikovsky's patron Nadezhda von Meck), though there are occasional pre-echoes of the mature Debussy. Märkl and his band perform this and the remainder of the program (the familiar Suite bergamasque, Petite Suite, and Printemps arrangements) with the same vitality and commitment afforded En blanc et noir. The spacious recording is a bit over-reverberant, but nevertheless provides solid presence and impact. Debussy fans will find this release a real delight.

--Victor Carr Jr, ClassicsToday.com

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Other review quotes:

"Subtle and sensitive readings" - Gramophone.

"This is bewitching music-making that should on no account be missed. One of the finest discs Naxos has ever released." - Classic FM (about Volume 1 (8.570759).

"Volume 6 in Naxos’s popular series presents five highly diverse works in gorgeous orchestrations by Debussy’s colleagues or later admirers. Indeed, pieces such as Clair de lune and Printemps may even be better known in these seductive guises than in their original forms. Of particular interest is Debussy’s sole attempt at composing a symphony, a youthful work imbued with the spirit of French Romanticism, only the first movement of which he completed." - Naxos

GINASTERA String Quartets: No. 1; No. 2; No. 3 1 • Ens? Qrt; Lucy Shelton (sop) 1 • NAXOS 8.570780 (73:31 Text and Translation)


More than most, Ginastera’s compositional output may be divided into three stylistic periods. His early works, using an impressionist language, were nationalistic in influence and drew heavily on Argentine dance rhythms. During his middle period, he expanded the scope of his tonality while remaining attached to his Hispanic roots, and in his late works he turned to contemporary avant-garde idioms. In my view, his best work comes from the middle period: the brilliant Harp Concerto and the succinct Variaciones concertantes. He was more individual than in his early impressionistic mode, and paradoxically more individual than he was to become after he adopted the standard stylistic traits of the 1960s and 1970s. His first two string quartets date from the beginning and end of that middle period.


Ginastera’s quartets demand a high level of virtuosity from the performers. Extreme dynamics, high harmonics, and syncopated rhythms requiring tight ensemble appear throughout. The First Quartet of 1948 is notable for its light-footed Scherzo ( vivacissimo ), its atmospheric slow movement ( calmo e poetico ), and a vigorous, stamping finale ( allegramente rustico ).


A similar wispy Scherzo movement occurs in the Second Quartet (1958, rev. 1968), but there it is deconstructed. In five movements, the Second Quartet contains an “extra” movement built from a series of cadenzas from each of the instruments ( libero e rapsodico ), before plunging into its own modernized version of a dance-inflected finale. The first movement presents a 12-tone theme, the first use of that technique in the composer’s work.


By the time of the Third Quartet, Ginastera had left his previous formal procedures behind. He introduced a soprano soloist, as did Schoenberg in his Second Quartet—a precedent of which the status-conscious Argentine composer was well aware. He set texts by Jiménez, Lorca, and Alberti, illuminating the soprano’s vocalizing and occasional spoken declamation with a series of ingenious string effects. The imagery and atmosphere of the poems dictate the musical form, so the task for the musicians is to reproduce specific moods, on top of the considerable technical challenges.


Previous recordings of all three quartets exist, though only one currently available brings them together on a single CD: the Cuarteto Latinoamericano (on Élan). I have not heard that disc, but I have the Latinoamericano recording of Quartet No. 1 in a mixed program from the same label (which may or may not be the same performance): they bring genuine excitement and tight ensemble to the piece, but are equally matched by the Ens? on this new release.


The original performers of the Third Quartet, Benita Valente and the Juilliard Quartet, recorded the work for the Bridge label in an interesting mixed recital that is well worth hearing for the couplings by Harbison and Wernick. Valente sings with great control and understanding, but the recording was made some 27 years after the event, by which time her voice had lost much of its bloom.


On the new disc, Lucy Shelton is a revelation: she brings pure tone and a wide range of vocal color to her interpretation. (Valente is more convincing in the relatively few spoken passages.) The U.S.-based Ens? Quartet plays with warmth and unanimity, meeting all the technical and interpretive hurdles with apparent ease. Naxos’s sound is excellent, the timing is generous, and a translation of the poetry is provided, making this CD the version of choice, regardless of price.


FANFARE: Phillip Scott

Billed as the start of a new complete Shostakovich symphony cycle, this initial entry holds a great deal of promise. The Eleventh Symphony has more the character of a film score than a traditional symphonic work: it thrives on atmosphere, color, and the repetition of simple tunes and motives rather than drama created by development and tonal contrast. Conductor Vasily Petrenko certainly understands this, whether in capturing the ghostly string timbres of the opening (reinforced by celesta on its many subsequent returns), in the crushing massacre sequence in the second movement, or in the splashy ending, with cymbals, bells, and tam-tam making cinematic contributions.

Petrenko's also very sensible in his handling of tempo. The first and third movements don't drag; the second and fourth have plenty of excitement with rhythms that never turn mechanical (as they have a tendency to do, what with so much militaristic march music). The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic plays very well, with distinguished contributions from all departments. My only quibble concerns the slightly backward positioning and lack of clarity afforded the timpanist, who carries much of the thematic substance of the first movement and presides over the massacre's percussion fusillades. Otherwise, this is pretty terrific on all counts. I recommend it accordingly, and look forward to the continuation of the cycle. [4/2/2009]

--David Hurwitz, ClassicssToday.com

As previous issues in this series have shown, when Antoni Wit and his forces are in top form in the music of Szymanowski, they're pretty much unbeatable. At last, we have a complete symphony cycle in performances that will serve as the reference for all newcomers. Szymanowski repudiated his First Symphony on stylistic grounds (too Wagnerian), and it certainly does not represent the direction he ultimately took. But it's still great fun: a big, bold, scant 20 minutes of colorful scoring and exuberant musical ideas. The Concert Overture is even more so. It's pure Richard Strauss, only better in some respects--packing all the ebullience of Don Juan or Ein Heldenleben (or both!) into a relatively concise curtain-raiser.

The performance of the Symphonie Concertante, one of Szymanowski's greatest works, is superb. Pianist Jan Krzysztof Broja plays the solo part beautifully. He's got the chops for the big moments in the outer movements, but it's his delicacy at the start of the central andante that's most memorable. Wit, typically, directs the orchestra with remarkable clarity as well as power. The finale in particular never has sounded less "clogged" texturally, while the very natural engineering always leaves plenty of room for the sound to expand and fill the hall at those ecstatic climaxes that are such a hallmark of this composer. A splendid release!

-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com