CLASSICAL

Latest CD releases reviewed.

VIVALDI: CONCERTOS FOR THE EMPEROR
English Concert/Andrew Manze (violin) Harmonia Mundi HMU 907332
*****

On a good day, it's said, a tennis player can see the ball as easily as if it were the size of a football. Something similar applies to baroque violinist Andrew Manze. It's as if the music comes to him slowly enough to allow for any amount of detailed nuancing, even when he's actually rocketing along. The six concertos here, versions of works from La Cetra that may have been prepared specially for the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI, encourage Manze to treat the violin as a sort of chameleon, trading appearances from work to work and movement to movement, and encompassing a cadenza of his own which takes him to dizzying altitude. Don't allow yourself to think for a moment that this is just another Vivaldi concerto collection cut from a familiar block. www.harmoniamundi.com  - Michael Dervan

AVISON: 12 CONCERTOS OP 6
Avison Ensemble/Pavlo Beznosiuk Naxos 8.557553-54 (2 CDs)
***

The Newcastle-born Charles Avison (1709-70), famous for the concertos he fashioned out of harpsichord sonatas by Scarlatti, was a composer in his own right, "the most important English concerto composer of the 18th century," in the words of The New Grove. Here the proselytising Avison Ensemble presents for the first time all 12 concertos of his Op. 6, first published in 1758. Don't expect any earth-shattering revelations. Avison, who preferred the style of his teacher Geminiani to Handel's, dots his i's and crosses his t's with care. The playing style has a solidity, even at times a burliness to match the music, which clearly shows the north of England to have been much closer to the musical mainstream than the long neglect of Avison's music might suggest. www.naxos.com - Michael Dervan

PURCELL: BIRTHDAY ODES FOR QUEEN MARY
Early Music Consort of London/David Munrow Classics for Pleasure 586 0502
***

These two birthday odes from the 1690s, Come ye sons of art away and Love's goddess sure, were recorded in 1975, when Purcell was still largely the preserve of British musicians, David Munrow was the uncrowned king of early music in Britain (he shocked the world by taking his own life a year later at the age of 33), and James Bowman was the counter tenor of the moment. To modern ears these performances sound rather more middle-of-the-road than you might expect, an indication of how period players' responses have developed over the years in expressive detailing and control of colour. The solo singing, however, is strong, and the music represents Purcell at his finest - the counter tenor duet "Sound the trumpet" (Bowman and Charles Brett) never palls. www.classicsforpleasure.com  - Michael Dervan

PETER MAXWELL DAVIES, A PORTRAIT
Various performers Decca 475 6166 (2 CDs)
***

Peter Maxwell Davies, who will be 70 next week, was music master at Cirencester Grammar School from 1959-62. In O magnum mysterium (1960), written for and recorded by the school choir and orchestra, he successfully adapted his modern voice to the abilities of his pupils. The adaptations in the other works here, all dating from the 1960s and 1970s (as do the recordings), are those of a composer obsessed with fashioning the music and ideas of the distant past into modern shapes, sometimes parodistic, sometimes severe. The selections include the Second Fantasia on John Taverner's In Nomine (Charles Groves conducting the New Philharmonia), Antechrist, Missa super L'homme armé, From Stone to Thorn, Lullaby for Ilian Rainbow, Hymn to St Magnus (all with the composer conducting the Fires of London), and seven In Nomines, some original, some arrangements (with the London Sinfonietta under David Atherton). www.deccaclassics.com  - Michael Dervan