CLASSICAL

Latest releases reviewed

HAMBURG 1734
Andreas Staier (harpsichord)
Harmonia Mundi HMC 901898
*****
The rich sonorities and frequent colour changes cherished and exploited by harpsichord pioneers like Wanda Landowska came to be shunned in the early music revival of the late 20th century. Andreas Staier's new disc indulges in excesses Landowska would have recognised. Staier was encouraged into them by a modern copy (by Anthony Sidey and Frédéric Ball) of a 1734 bells-and-whistles harpsichord by the Hamburg builder Hieronymus Albrecht Hass. Staier strays well outside the disc's notional base of Hamburg, which he represents through Handel, Mattheson and Telemann, to draw in composers from Lübeck (Buxtehude) and Lüneberg (Böhm). He ranges back to the 17th century (Scheidemann, Weckmann) and forward to the 21st (for a specially tailored flourish by Brice Pauset), and he incorporates elaborate arrangements of orchestral pieces by Telemann which require moments of assistance from a second player, Christine Schornsheim. Both music and playing are richly endowed with an outgoing exuberance that Landowska would surely have cherished. www.uk.hmboutique.com - Michael Dervan

BACH: GOLDBERG VARIATIONS; ITALIAN CONCERTO; CHROMATIC FANTASY AND FUGUE
Wanda Landowska (harpsichord)
Naxos Historical 8.110313
****
Recordings by Landowska herself have begun resurfacing in Naxos's historical series. The latest features major Bach recordings from the 1930s, including the first ever recording of the Goldberg Variations. This was made in 1933, just six months after Landowska had first performed the work publicly on the harpsichord, and more than 20 years before the launch of Glenn Gould's more famous recording on the piano. Landowska's approach is more romantic than Gould's but every bit as vivid in the nature of its musical characterisation, and equally breathtaking in its technical command. Her imaginative vision is, if anything, even more arresting in the idiosyncratic arpeggiation of the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue and the high-impact outer movements of the Italian Concerto. www.naxos.com - Michael Dervan

SCHUBERT: DIE SCHÖNE MÜLLERIN
Thomas Quasthoff (bass baritone), Justus Zeyen (piano)
Deutsche Grammophon 474 2182
***
In his programme note for Thomas Quasthoff's new recording of Die schöne Müllerin, Thomas Voigt points out both the desirability and difficulty of achieving naturalness and simplicity in handling the mesh of memory, longing and regret that is Schubert's song-cycle. The performance itself, however, doesn't quite deliver the artless emotional penetration that Voigt seems to have in mind. The shortcomings are by no means all to be laid at the singer's door. Pianist Justus Zeyen doesn't always manage to avoid an effect of inappropriate lugubriousness in the low keys chosen by Quasthoff. And although the singing is beautiful in itself, it can create an effect that's sometimes not just simple but also, well, expressively plain. www.dgclassics.com - Michael Dervan

HANDEL: CONCERTI GROSSI OPP 3 & 6
Handel and Haydn Society/Christopher Hogwood
Avie AV2065 (3 CDs)
***
Christopher Hogwood's recordings of Handel's concerti grossi date from the late 1980s and early 1990s. Works that were originally spread over four discs now appear more compactly laid out as a three-disc, mid-priced set on Avie. Hogwood is a mild-mannered Handelian. He seems intent on letting the music appear to speak for itself and achieves performances with a natural-sounding, easy flow. It was on his appointment as artistic director in 1986 that the players of Boston's Handel and Haydn Society converted to period instruments, and although their delivery in these performances is not always impeccable, the tone is attractively light, and the neutrality of the interpretative stance largely appealing. www.avierecords.com - Michael Dervan