This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players. "The oft-recorded Haydn Concerto is vividly recorded with the...

This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.

"The oft-recorded Haydn Concerto is vividly recorded with the signal completely unclouded. This reveals Tarkövi’s peach-tender full fat tone. This is on best display in the Andante of the Haydn which paves the way for the lickety-split allegro. The charmingly decorous two-movement Leopold Mozart Concerto features harpsichord continuo. Neruda’s Trumpet Concerto - like the Hummel work - returns us to the conventional three movement template. Prague-based Neruda wrote 18 symphonies, 10 violin concertos, one bassoon concerto, 34 trio-sonatas and, among much else, this trumpet concerto. It is a fluent work with some very eloquent noble invention in the opening Allegro and many touching and original turns in the solo line in the final Vivace. Hummel opens with sturm und drang before making way for some witty light-on-the-feet material. It is good to be reminded that Hummel wrote such a sweetly inclined concerto. Tarkövi is always pleasingly ripe-toned though he is not always ideally attentive to staccato demands. On the other hand mechanical noise from the pistons is imperceptible except once during the trills at the end of the first movement of the Hummel. There is much to enjoy here among these four concertos written between 1762 and 1803.

It is typical of Tudor that their booklet which is in three languages is a joy to use. It affords plenty of information about the music and the sensible font design and size is kind to the eyes."

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International