Track Listing

1. Main Title/First Hallucination
2. Love Theme
3. Second Hallucination
4. First Transformation
5. Primeval Landscape
6. Second Transformation (The Ape Man Sequence)
7. Religious Memories And Father's Death
8. The Laboratory Experiment / Jessup's Transformation / Collapse Of The Laboratory / The Whirlpool And Journey To Another Dimension / Return To Reality - (remix)
9. Final Transformation, The

How curious that a contemporary clarinet concerto should receive two recordings in such quick succession. Does John Corigliano's 30-minute work deserve the honour? Well, I heard it at the 1987 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, where it was the only work in an LSO concert of American Music not to be heckled (the others were decried as absurdly derivative). It certainly deserved its respectful reception, even though the superficial and opportunistic finale seemed to me then unworthy of the cadenzas and elegy which preceded it. Looking at MEO's review of the Drucker/Mehta recording (on New World/Conifer) I see that's more or less how it struck him, too.

It helps a little to know that the finale was designed as ''a kind of festival for all the players''. And it helps that Stoltzman launches into it with even more daring and panache than Drucker (the concerto's dedicatee and a fine exponent). Stoltzman and Leighton Smith also stretch the slow movement a lot further than do Drucker and Mehta, and it says something for the expressive quality of the music that it can take this treatment. The confidence and relish with which Corigliano flings sounds around the orchestra in the opening movement also compels admiration. As for lasting quality, however, it cannot be claimed that the concerto has the substance of Nielsen's, the memorability of Copland's or a strong enough alternative identity of its own to persuade one to rank it anywhere near those works.

In the early stages of the Copland Stoltzman is rather less atmospheric than Janet Hilton (on Chandos), whose floating sound and tender legato make for a very special kind of poetry; later on her sense of fun and her feeling for the jazz idiom are also delightful. But the more the music swings, the more Stoltzman's alley-cat instincts come into their own. The LSO strings surpass their Scottish counterparts in their poise at tempo changes and in certain exposed passages later on.

The Bernstein also goes well, although Rattle on his EMI ''Jazz Collection'' manages to make it sound even more vulgar. RCA's recording quality is first rate, and for anyone drawn to this particular coupling, or to exceptional clarinet virtuosity, this is an issue not to be missed.

-- Gramophone [4/1989]

CANTELOUBE: SONGS OF THE AUVER

C. P. E. Bach's five flute concertos date from his years at Berlin and Potsdam as harpsichordist to Frederick the Great. James Galway and the Wurttemberg Chamber Orchestra play three of them. The best known is the Concerto in D minor (Wq22) but this, in fact, may never have been intended by Bach as a flute work. He wrote it for harpsichord and strings, but a copy for flute exists, made by Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia who was a gifted musician and an assiduous collector of music. Bach was in close contact with her at Frederick's court and perhaps authorized the flute transcription after all, he himself was shortly to do the same with the remaining concertos, all of which follow the D minor work in their date of composition. The Concerto in A major (Wq168) exists in alternative versions for solo harpsichord and solo cello while the Concerto in G major (Wq169) exists in an alternative version for harpsichord and strings.

Galway gives characteristically warm and polished performances of the three concertos and he is very well supported by the Wurttemberg strings. This orchestra and their conductor were responsible many years ago for some of the liveliest repertory on the old Vox-Turnabout label and since then seem to have lost none of their vitality. The quirkiness in some of Emanuel Bach's writing and its brooding intensity, especially in slow movements, is played down here in the interests of elegance and gracefulness of expression. They are qualities which these artists understand well and it may well be that this ingenuous view of the music, somewhat lacking in introspection but plentifully equipped with virtuosity, will commend itself to listeners in a way that others do not. The sound, generously assisted by a spacious acoustic, is certainly very beautiful yet I felt that a veneer of artificiality covered the Largo con sordini of the A major Concerto. The deeply felt, passionate utterances of this music are conveyed only in part here, and I found Galway's insistent vibrato hard to justify. That, however, is perhaps more of a personal matter.

Nevertheless, in spite of reservations this is an enjoyable recital, beautifully recorded and impressively played. But readers with a taste for period style and a feeling for Bach's essential individuality may well prefer Konrad Hunteler's performances on Erato/Warner Classics with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra directed by Ton Koopman.

-- Nicholas Anderson, Gramophone [2/1991]

...Corigliano's Piano Concerto [is] a powerful and ambitious work in four sharply contrasted movements. Dating from 1968, long before his AIDS-inspired Symphony No. 1 and the brilliantly successful Met opera, The Ghosts of Versailles, it communicates with similar immediacy. The substantial opening Allegro, much the longest movement, is in modified sonata form, with a jazzy first subject prompting heavyweight virtuoso writing for the soloist, quickly leading to a broadly lyrical, meditative second theme. If Corigliano unashamedly uses a freely eclectic style, his writing is consistently positive and energetic, never merely conventional, both in that first movement and the compact scherzo, the lyrical Andante appassionato slow movement and the Rondo finale which follow.

Having an all-Corigliano coupling has the merit of setting the work in context. The Elegy and the show-piece, Tournaments Overture, both date from even earlier and are his first full orchestral works— the one developed from the love scene in incidental music Corigliano wrote for a play about Helen of Troy, the other a virtuoso piece, substantially monothematic, that tests the orchestra to the limit in its three clearly defined sections, fast-slow-fast. Unlike most composers Corigliano is consistently helpful and direct in his comments on each work. One would never have realized that the Fantasia on an Ostinato was adapted from a solo piano piece, so fluent and brilliant is the orchestral writing. The argument is built on the main theme of the Allegretto second movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, which eventually emerges gently and slowly at the very end, with the final chord taken direct from the symphony. As Corigliano puts it, "I have attempted to combine what I felt were the attractive aspects of minimalism with convincing architecture and emotional expression".

Slatkin draws outstanding playing from the St Louis orchestra, and Barry Douglas proves a powerful advocate, using a daringly wide dynamic range and tonal palate.

-- Edward Greenfield, Gramophone [11/1996]

This is an important collection of real rarities by Mussorgsky. Many of them are manhandled by Rimsky-Korsakov in game re-orchestrations, but there is more than enough of the original to engage the attention. The early Scherzo in B flat must rank as one of Mussorgsky’s least individual pieces, with its Schubertian good humour. In slow passages Abbado tends to inflate matters, but on balance these are fine performances of rare and precious repertory.

-- Jan Smaczny, BBC Music Magazine

Recorded at Lübeck Cathedral on August 22-23, 1987 as the final concerts of the 1987 Schleswig Holstein Music Festival.

CHRISTMAS WITH THE CANADIAN BR

Although this phenomenally popular body of music has attracted almost every important pianist of the last 150 years, its unlikely that Frédéric Chopin ever found, or will ever find, a more ideal interpreter than Artur Rubinstein... The key to Rubinstein's greatness as a Chopin interpreter was the combination of utter naturalness as a performer and his enormously sophisticated musical mind. Nothing ever seems forced or premeditated: there are no sharp edges or sudden flashes of insight. In fact,the illusion the performances create is one of the music flowing, without benefit of a human intermediary, directly from Chopin's heart to the listener's... At almost every moment in these classic recordings, Rubinstein discovers some wonder of color or phrasing, brings out a beautiful inner voice it seems we've never heard before, and in general creates the impression of a man for whom playing this often fiendishly difficult music is no more difficult than breathing or making love. -- Jim Sveda, from The Record Shelf Guide to the Classical Repertoire [reviewing the 11-CD box set of Chopin recordings by Artur Rubinstein, RCA 260822]

CORIGLIANO: OBOE CONCERTO, POE

This double set, originally released in 1994, contains the complete contents of three classic holiday albums from the Robert Shaw chorale:
Christmas Hymns & Carols, Volume I ("Living Stereo" LSC-2139) [1957]
Christmas Hyns & Carols, Volume II ("Orthophonic" LM-1711) [1952]
Britten: A Ceremony of Carols, Festival Te Deum & Rejoice in the Lamb ("Dynagroove" 2759) [1963]

This reissue was remastered directly from the original RCA Victor Red Seal Master tapes.

BRAHMS: SYMPHONY NO 1, ETC MU

Produced by George Korngold

Recording Engineer: K.E. Wilkinson

Recorded in February 1973

"In his notes for this CD, Gerhardt states, "it is my conviction that so powerful an artist as Miss Davis, through the strength of her portrayals, inspired a variety of composers to produce some of their best work....her composers created a 'Bette Davis sound'." Here is a varied program of music written for some of her greatest roles, high points being the excerpts from Dark Victory and Now, Voyager." - Robert Benson, Classical CD Review

This package includes a special booklet containing music and lyric sheets for all the carols.

CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO: GUITAR CO