"[A] high-class ensemble with superlative playing in all departments. Flor has an excellent feel for Mendelssohn's music. . . . [H]e understands the paradox that while Mendelssohn's scores should never be made to sound too heavy they often contain more emotional depth and expressive weight than is immediately apparent. . . . Camacho's Wedding is a real rarity, though it shouldn't be, [with] a charmingly open-hearted character and high craftsmanship. . . . Ruy Blas is given an urgently expressive yet beautifully balanced reading, while The Hebrides receives a delicately inflected, most imaginative performance. The recording of this very desirable disc seems to me just about ideal, for it has a very natural, warm quality with plenty of space, clarity and detail." -- Gramophone

JEWELS OF THE CLASSICS RICHAR

Vivaldi: Concertos Op.10 - Sammartini: Concerto in F

SOUVENIR MICHALA PETRI, LARS

Tashi don their tuxedos and, in the case of violinist Ida Kavafian, a flapper dress. The roaring twenties provide the only common link in this oddball collection; as the sleeve-note suggests during that rollicking decade ''the world was bent on having a good time''. I'll take that on trust. Tashi have a good time here, and so, for the most part, do we. I am never entirely sure about Hindemith, but you don't argue with the craftsmanship. He was 28 and irritatingly eager when he put together this inventive little Quintet. No musical fashion seems to have escaped him—from the obligatory string elegy with its generous coating of late romanticism, to the curdled third movement Landler with its grotesque mix of Berlin cabaret and Mahlerian Wunderhorn (Richard Stoltzman in his element brandishing the E flat clarinet), a touch of premature minimalism in the curiously spare fourth movement, and a finale which begins by sounding as though it is rewinding the score back to the beginning. The Lukas Foss piece is weird, too—not in terms of the musical language, which is disarmingly mainstream, but on account of its gentle off-beat humour. Just when you think you should be taking it seriously … The treadmill finale, for instance, is notable for two thin-lipped piano solos and a spooky disappearing-trick at the end. Stoltzman again gets the lion's share of the virtuosity.

As for the remaining bon-bons Stoltzman and friends are suitably laid-back. Alan Shulman's Rendezvous was written for Benny Goodman and sounds much as its title suggests. A deceptive start, like off-duty Richard Strauss, gives way to swingtime. And swingtime is what we are looking for, and get, in at least three of the five Gershwin morsels. Stoltzman tosses off a deliciously frisky Promenade (or Walking the dog) while the standards are duly adored—the flavour of the arrangements, Palm Court with a twist.

-- Edward Seckerson, Gramophone [3/1990]

R STRAUSS: METAMORPHOSEN FOR 2

THE HEIFETZ COLLECTION VOL 31

SHOSTAKOVICH: SYMPHONY NO 10

The original sessions were supervised by Leonard Joy, Eli Oberstein, Steve Sholes and Harry Meyerson.

While the original six-LP box set correctly reissued all of Lionel Hampton's 1937-41 small-group recordings as a leader, the CD reissue program has been rather erratic, dividing up some of these selections in almost random fashion between three CDs, often splitting up sessions between a pair of discs. The first of these three CDs is the strongest, highlighted by "On the Sunny Side of the Street" (featuring altoist Johnny Hodges), "I'm Confessin'" with trumpeter Jonah Jones, and the four master takes from a date with Coleman Hawkins, Chu Berry, Ben Webster, Benny Carter and a young Dizzy Gillespie.

THE HEIFETZ COLLECTION VOL 33

LALO, SIBELIUS, RAVEL PERLMAN

"Just over ten years ago RCA brought out a version of The Four Seasons with its star Flute-player James Galway, as soloist, replacing the violin, and very enjoyable it was (RL25034, 2/77; CD RD70161, 6/85). Now with another star wind-player newly under contract, the same company uses a similar device, and among the dozens of versions of this much-recorded group of works it could hardly be more distinctive. As expected, it proves an admirable vehicle for a winning artist, who in her own transcriptons puts her personal magic on rhythm and phrasing, not least in the slow movements, never dawdling sentimentally but always setting the solo instrument in relief by its very contrast of timbre.

Those likely to be attracted by the idea of Petri as soloist are not going to be worried overmuch about any scholarly justification, and though the recorder might be counted a period instrument, it remains alone in this ensemble, with, the talented young string-players (originally assembled at Guildhall School in London) adopting their usual modern performance technique. The hand of another highly individual artist lies behind this too, George Malcolm, who springs rhythms in his continuo to match his soloist, and adds his own little harpsichord cadenza before the first movement coda of ''Autumn''.

The problem for Petri in making her transcription for recorder has been largely one of pitch, far more critical than with Galway's flute. In the opening tutti, you hear the bright silvery sound of the soloist from the start, and then the great shrieks on high B confirm the arrival of the sopranino recorder, never a discreet instrument. Though Petri does wonders in making it more expressive than I have ever known it, the relentlessly penetrating quality of sopranino tone is wearing, and the very end of ''Winter'', shrieking away up an octave gets near to being painful. Even so, the bird-song imitations are made the more naturalistic by the brightness of timbre, and unlike such a baroque flautist as Frans Bruggen in his accounts of Vivaldi's Flute Concerto, Il gardellino (RCA GL70951; CD RD70951, 2/87), Petri steers a relatively discreet line between naturalism and the notes in the score, when it comes to bird-song. In fast movements her articulation is a marvel, as in the Danza pastorale of ''Spring'', while understandably she opts out in favour of the violin in some of the last movement tuttis of the Storm in the second concerto.

Where in the slow movements of the first two concertos the relatively low pitching of the melody allows for the more comfortable timbre of the ordinary descant recorder, the slow movements of ''Autumn'' and ''Winter'' are made the more edgy by sopranino tone, and it is the same instrument which is used in the concerto which comes as makeweight on Side 2, the delightful Concerto in C, RV443, with its haunting minor-key slow movement and a finale which brightly uses horn-pipe rhythm. Compared with Petri's earlier version for Philips with Iiona Brown and the St Martin's Academy (9500 714, 11/80; CD 400 075-2PH, 7/83), this one is even fresher and clearer, largely a question of recorded sound.

The recording is bright and fresh to match the performances, with the solo instruments grabbing prominence naturally without too much spotlighting."

-- Edward Greenfield, Gramophone [12/1987]

Suffice to say these are done expertly...it can be purchased safely, secure in the knowledge that much enjoyment may be had from its contents. - MusicWeb International

MOZART: VIOLIN CONCERTO 3, CON

The Heifetz Collection, Vol. 46 - The Final Recital