Classical

Classical CDs reviewed

PHANTASY OF SPRING
Carolin Widmann (violin), Simon Lepper (piano) ECM New Series
476 3310 *****

This disc offers four very different 20th-century approaches to writing for violin and piano. Schoenberg described his 12-tone Phantasy of 1949 as being for violin with piano accompaniment, and even completed the violin part first before adding the piano part. Bernd Alois Zimmermann's 1950 Sonata is eagerly eclectic, with a fondness for chunky rhythms. Nearly three decades on, the contrasts are even greater between Morton Feldman's 1978 delicately ethereal Spring of Chosroes(named after a carpet described in sixth-century Persian manuscripts) and Iannis Xenakis's Dikhthas of 1979, a work that's stormily violent, perpetually fraught with grinding clashes and disruptive torrents. Widmann and Lepper adapt to the different styles which chameleon-like ease. www.ecmrecords.com

HANDEL: ORGAN CONCERTOS OP 7
Academy of Ancient Music/ Richard Egarr (organ) Harmonia Mundi HMU 807447.48(2 CDs) ****

If you like your Handel prim and proper, or if you expect the religiose flavour of old-style Messiah performances to inform the composer's orchestral music, then Richard Egarr's approach to the organ concertos here (the six of Op 7 plus The Cuckoo and the Nightingale) won't be for you. Egarr opens the first concerto with an improvisatory flourish of his own, and delights in later openings for similar freedoms. Ebullience and danger are hallmarks of the characterful approach that he takes not only in the concertos themselves, but in the three harpsichord works also included: the Chaconnes in F and G, and a Fugue in G minor. www.tinyurl. com/6mchwb

GÉRARD PESSON: AGGRAVATIONS ET FINAL
WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln/ Lucas Vis, Johannes Kalitzke, Ensemble Modern/Brad Lubman Aeon AECD 0876 *****

French composer Gérard Pesson's Wunderblock (Nebenstück II)is a wheezing, gasping, tinkling ghost. It's "an attempt at the erasure" of the opening movement of Bruckner's Sixth Symphony, scored for accordion (Teodoro Anzelotti) and orchestra. The effect is surreal and nightmarish, like the ruin of a great building that's at once magnificent and ridiculous. There's something of the world of the Swiss artist Tinguely about the five pieces included here. They show a playfulness that's mechanistic and anarchic, full of apparently misdirected striving, with even the full orchestra in Aggravations et Finalworking through unorthodox sonorities that are often fragile, feeble and fragmented. It's a peculiarly captivating disc. www.aeon.fr

STOKOWSKI' THE MAVERICK CONDUCTOR
Various Orchestras/Leopold Stokowski EMI Classics 698 5552(10 CDs) ***

Leopold Stokowski was the opposite of purist when it came to music- making. It wasn't just that he shook Mickey Mouse's hand in Walt Disney's Fantasia. He often glamourised, sometimes truncated, and otherwise tinkered with details in the broad repertoire he conducted. This EMI Icon set documents the conductor's work in the recording studio from 1957 (when he turned 75) to 1960, in tapings which capture the wizardry of his well-deserved reputation for sonority and colour – the tricks of the mixing desk were a lifelong preoccupation. Bach arrangements feature in this mostly 20th-century setm where Russian symphonies (Shostakovich 1 & 11, Glière 3, Khachaturian 2) get the biggest representation, followed by French repertoire, Stravinsky, Orff, Bartók and Schoenberg. www.emi classics.com