Classical

William Grant Still: Afro-American Symphony; Amy Beach: Gaelic Symphony. RPO/Karl Krueger (Bridge)

A coupling of two pioneering American symphonies. The Afro-American symphony of 1930 was the first of its kind by a black American. It is light, episodic, bluesy, its skilful orchestration revealing the experience the composer had gained in a wide variety of arranging work. The Gaelic symphony of 1896 by Mrs Beach (as she is commonly known) has proved the most enduring work by America's first successful woman composer. It was effectively a riposte to Dvorak's encouragement of Americans to look to Afro-American music as a source of inspiration. A work of solid construction in 19th-century style, it absorbs the folk material smoothly into the symphony rather than, Still-like, adjusting the symphony to the material.

By Michael Dervan

Janacek: Three Opera Suites. Prague SO/Jiri Belohlavek (Supraphon)

The extraordinary period of Janacek's late compositional flowering left the orchestral repertoire enriched by only two orchestral works, Taras Bulba and the Sinfonietta. Hence the interest in creating concert suites from the operas, beginning in the 1930s with Vaclav Talich's arrangement of music from the delightful Cunning Little Vixen. It was Frantisek Jilek who turned his hand to the darkly Dostoyevskian From the House of the Dead and Jaroslav Smolka who, most recently, assembled a substantial suite (here recorded for the first time) from the fantastical and satirical Excursions of Mr Broucek. Belohlavek handles all three with a light hand, hardly maximising contrasts in what is still a useful and unique collection.

By Michael Dervan

Bartok: Miraculous Mandarin Suite; Hindemith: Noblissima visione; Varese: Arcana. Chicago SO/Jean Martinon (RCA)

Suites for orchestra, says the CD cover. But the differences in these works from a 20-year span, 19181938, are much greater than any similarities - Bartok's vivid pantomime of sordid, crime-based seduction, Varese's "music that explodes into space", written for a large orchestra generously endowed with percussion, Hindemith's restrained and altogether smoother-sounding music for a ballet with Massine on the life of St Francis. The disc represents the unhackneyed musical taste and glossy performing style of Jean Martinon in the short period in the 1960s, when this conductor (a mainstay of the early years of the Radio Eireann SO) was in charge of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

By Michael Dervan