Classical

The latest CD releases reviewed

MUSSORGSKY: ST JOHN'S NIGHT ON THE BARE MOUNTAIN; BARTÓK: MIRACULOUS MANDARIN SUITE; STRAVINSKY: RITE OF SPRING
Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra/ Esa-Pekka Salonen Deutsche Grammophon 477 6198 ****

These live recordings, made at the LA Phil's new home, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, feature luxuriant accounts of three works renowned for their rawness. The intentional crudities of Mussorgsky's symphonic poem are still better known in the prettified bowdlerisation by Rimsky-Korsakov than in the composer's provocative original. The premiere of The Rite of Spring generated riots that brought Stravinsky the instant celebrity of notoriety. And, quite apart from The Miraculous Mandarin's musical mixture of seduction and violence, the steamy scenario of Bartók's musical pantomime caused it to be shut down by the mayor of Cologne after a single performance in 1926. Salonen's approach is illuminating in the Bartók and Stravinsky, though more in the manner of a spotlit display-case presentation than a natural encounter. The Mussorgsky, unfortunately, sounds strangely tame. The recording captures the weight of the LA Phil in full flight with earth-shattering impact. www.deutschegrammophon.com  Michael Dervan

HANDEL: MESSIAH (1750 VERSION)
Kerstin Avemo (soprano), Patricia Bardon (alto), Lawrence Zazzo (counter tenor), Kobie van Rensburg (tenor), Neal Davies (bass), Choir of Clare College, Freiburger Barockorchester/ René Jacobs Harmonia Mundi 901928.29 (2 CDs) *****

Performing style in Handel's Messiah has gone through a veritable wringer because of changes in musical taste over the last half-century. Fervent, heavy religiosity gave way to a style of lighter, sometimes even chaste-sounding engagement. René Jacobs and his period-instrument forces manage to convey immediacy of emotional involvement with fleetness of movement and frequent delicacy of touch. The often florid continuo touches (involving harp, lute, harpsichord and organ) may trouble some listeners, but are fully in keeping with the style of vocal embellishment Jacobs favours. Among the soloists, US counter tenor Lawrence Zazzo avoids the hooting whiteness of many of his British counterparts, and Patricia Bardon contributes a firm and rare contralto quality. Naxos has just issued an altogether more reserved-sounding account of the 1753 version, an attractive proposition for anyone wanting to hear the solo soprano parts sung by boys. But Jacobs's recording is altogether finer in the detail of its responses. www.uk.hmboutique.com  Michael Dervan

SCHOENBERG: FIVE ORCHESTRA PIECES OP 16; CELLO CONCERTO (AFTER MONN); BRAHMS/ SCHOENBERG: PIANO QUARTET IN G MINOR
Fred Sherry (cello), London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia/Robert Craft Naxos 8.557524 ****

Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra of 1909 are a high-watermark of musical expressionism. The 1933 Cello Concerto, arranged from a 1746 harpsichord concerto by Georg Matthias Monn, is a frolicsome extravagance of such extreme and sometimes absurd-seeming technical difficulty that not many cellists are willing to tackle it. The 1938 orchestration of Brahms's First Piano Quartet is a loving homage undertaken to improve the chances of a work Schoenberg felt was "always very badly played". Conductor Robert Craft is lucid in the first two, impassioned in the third, with Fred Sherry the game soloist in the Monn arrangement. www.naxos.com Michael Dervan

BEETHOVEN: PATHÉTIQUE, MOONLIGHT & WALDSTEIN SONATAS; ANDANTE FAVORI; RONDO IN C; SCARLATTI/TAUSIG: PASTORALE & CAPRICCIO; WEBER: PERPETUUM MOBILE Benno Moiseiwitsch (piano) Naxos Historical 8.111115  *****

Benno Moiseiwitsch, the Odessa-born British pianist, recorded these three nicknamed Beethoven piano sonatas in the early 1940s, and the spontaneity of his playing, the sense of a performer taking total ownership of the music, is quite remarkable. It's not the kind of approach you're likely to hear too much of in concert today, when scruples about textual faithfulness and stylistic purity hold such sway. Moiseiwitsch's effortless-sounding music-making was captured with fidelity by the engineers of the time, and the recordings still sound well in excellent transfers by Ward Marston. The fill-ups are equally fine, and the Weber Perpetuum mobile capers along with the silkiest of finishes. Moiseiwitsch recorded Beethoven again towards the end of his life (he died in 1963), but these early recordings are the ones to go for. www.naxos.com  Michael Dervan