Classical

The latest CD releases reviewed

IL DIVINO BOEMO
Concerto Köln/Werner Ehrhardt (violin) Archiv Produktion 477 6418 ****

Josef Myslivecek (1737-81), known in his lifetime as Il Boemo and later re-branded Il Divino Boemo in a 19th-century novelette, straddled the period when the opera overture was metamorphosing into the concert symphony. And Myslivecek's tuneful style itself sometimes intriguingly straddles the ground between chirpy and fiery. Concerto Köln's period-instruments performances of the seven three-movements works on this new disc at times try to make too much out of slow-moving or sustained background material, but the breeziness and energy of the playing nicely match the music. The disc will appeal to anyone who responds to the early Mozart, and the biggest piece, a delectably wind-rich Concertino in E flat, should appeal to a much broader listenership. www.deutschegrammophon.com

MOZART: SYMPHONIES 38 (PRAGUE) & 41 (JUPITER)
Freiburger Barockorchester/René Jacobs Harmonia Mundi HMC 901958 ***

Mozart wrote his Prague Symphony (which takes its nickname from the city of its premiere) in 1786, just five years after the death of Myslivecek. But the younger composer is already a world apart from Myslivecek in the scale and complexity of musical construction and expression, and the finale of the Jupiter Symphony, which followed two years later, is one of the all-time great achievements of contrapuntal wizardry. René Jacobs's conducting is not without controversial touches: unexpectedly crushed ornaments, stabbing attacks and, in the first movement of the Jupiter, some tempo shifts which hark back to the practices of such conductors as Koussevitzky and Mengelberg and will surely strike some ears as disfiguring. But if you can overlook details like these, the sheer freshness of the music-making is thoroughly engaging, as if everyone involved were newly in love with this great music. www.uk.hmboutique.com

ALFVÉN: SYMPHONY NO 5; ANDANTE RELIGIOSO
Norrköping SO/Niklas Willén Naxos 8.557612 ***

Hugo Alfvén was the grand old man of Swedish music when he died in 1960, just after his 88th birthday. The first movement of his fifth and final symphony was ready in time for his 70th birthday celebrations in 1942. But the work thereafter became something of a struggle, and Alfvén may have sealed its fate by letting it be known that he remained unconvinced by the later movements. However, he described the 20-minute opening movement as the "least bad thing I have written". Stylistically backward-looking it may be, but there's an impressive sweep and grandeur in Niklas Willén's performance, although the weakness of what follows is inescapable. www.naxos.com

DECCA RECORDINGS 1944-1970, VOL 4
Clifford Curzon (piano), various orchestras and conductors Decca Original Masters 475 8202 (7 CDs) *****

This is the final volume in Decca's Original Masters 21-disc survey of what the fastidious English pianist Clifford Curzon (1907-82) called his "apppointments with posterity" in the recording studio. It's got some wonderful collaborations with composer Benjamin Britten as pianist (in Britten's music for two pianos recorded in the 1940s) and as conductor (in two Mozart concertos recorded in 1970). Along with a further four Mozart concertos with István Kertész, you'll find classic accounts of concertos by Brahms (with George Szell) and Beethoven (with Hans Knappertsbusch), and typically sensitive accounts of Schumann's Fantasy in C and Kinderszenen, and Schubert's Wanderer Fantasy and Trout Quintet (with members of the Vienna Octet). This set offers a valuably deep perspective on the balance of Curzon's musical personality, where the demands of musicianship (finely adjusted) and virtuosity (unobtrusive) were always kept nicely poised. www.deccaclassics.com