CLASSICAL

The latest releases reviewed.

VIVALDI: 8 FLUTE CONCERTOS Emmanuel Pahud (flute), Australian Chamber Orchestra/Richard Tognetti (violin) EMI Classics 347 2122 ***

It's all in the picture. The cover of Emmanuel Pahud's new CD shows the performer in modern suit with modern flute sitting on antique furniture. And his performances of Vivaldi's flute concertos with the Australian Chamber Orchestra mix modern and historical musical approaches. Virtuosity can be taken for granted. Pahud commands both brilliance and delicacy in rapid passagework, and he turns in some pretty breathtakingly fancy effects. But there's also an accompanying sense of exaggeration, of things taken to extremes beyond the music's advantage, an effect compounded by the often in-your-face quality of the recording. www.emiclassics.com

Michael Dervan

French pianist Hélène Grimaud, who will partner Pahud at the NCH in June, takes the extraordinary relationships between Johannes Brahms and Clara and Robert Schumann as the starting point of her new CD. Orchestral and instrumental works by Robert (the Piano Concerto with the Staatskapelle Dresden under Esa-Pekka Salonen) and Brahms (the E minor Cello Sonata with Truls Mørk and the Rhapsodies, Op 79) frame three songs by Clara, passionately delivered by mezzo soprano Anne Sofie von Otter. Passionate expression is the order of the day, with the performers managing to catch an appealing zing of edgy spontaneity. The partnership in the cello sonata is particularly fine. www.dgclassics.com

Michael Dervan

SHOSTAKOVICH: THE EXECUTION OF STEPAN RAZIN; OCTOBER; FIVE FRAGMENTS OP 42 Charles Robert Austin (bass baritone), Seattle Symphony Chorale, Seattle Symphony/Gerard Schwarz Naxos 8.557812 ***

These three works are from the shadows of Shostakovich's output. The Five Fragments, written in a single sitting, are short studies for the gargantuan Fourth Symphony of 1936. The cantata, The Execution of Stepan Razin (1964), followed the Babi Yar Symphony in setting texts by Yevtushenko. The symphony was whole-hearted, but Shostakovich remained ambivalent about Yevtushenko's verse in the later enterprise, although the music itself is vividly characterised. The composer worried about official responses, yet the cantata was awarded a Glinka State Prize in 1968. The populist symphonic poem October, written for the 50th anniversary of the 1917 Revolution, is just the sort of work to fuel the ongoing debate about the composer's true political position. Gerard Schwarz's performances are strong and thrusting, though the singing shows clear signs of non-native accents. www.naxos.com

Michael Dervan

Deutsche Grammophon's luxury 1956 Mozart Jubilee Edition is here reissued with a swathe of extra material, some from as late as 1959, to add the attraction of stereo recordings. There are six two-disc sets (Symphonies, Piano Concertos, Chamber Music, Serenades, Opera, Sacred Music), each featuring an essay which places the 1950s performances (and contemporary attitudes to Mozart) in a Germano-centric historical perspective. The dominant figure, however, is actually Hungarian, the conductor Ferenc Fricsay (getting the handful of symphonies all to himself), whose music-making strives for an energised incisiveness and clarity. The five pianists sharing out the piano concertos include Clara Haskil and Mieczyslaw Horszowski, both experts at achieving maximal expressive outcome with minimal apparent interpretative intervention. There are no period instruments here, though the glass harmonica makes an appearance in the chamber music set, which is devoted mostly to the Amadeus Quartet, often spoiling their equilibrium by overplaying their hand. The attractions of the serenades and opera sets (the latter briefly featuring the young Fischer-Dieskau) are a lot greater than the sacred music, where a live, 1955 Requiem in its liturgical context is undermined by turgid sound and performance. www.dgclassics.com

Michael Dervan