Latest CD releases reviewed
SHOSTAKOVICH: PIANO TRIOS; COPLAND: VITEBSK
Trio Wanderer Harmonia Mundi HMC 901825
***
The best-known work here is the latest, Shostakovich's Second Trio of 1944, dedicated to the memory of the composer's great friend, Ivan Sollertinsky. After the restrained opening, the Trio Wanderer's style tends towards a manner that's big and impressively bold, though it sometimes becomes so thrusting that it blunts the expression of passages where a sense of containment - even if it's ferocity that's being contained - can yield even more. The earlier Shostakovich trio, a student work dedicated to his first love in 1923, is similarly emphatic in execution. It's in Aaron Copland's Vitebsk, a "Study on a Jewish Theme" of 1928, with its moments of clashing quarter tones (the work was intended "to reflect the harshness and drama of Jewish life in White Russia"), that the performers' forceful manner works best. www.harmoniamundi.com - Michael Dervan
SCHÜTZ: MUSICALISCHE EXEQUIEN & OTHER WORKS
Alsfelder Vokalensemble, Himlische Cantorey, Barockorchester I Gebiarmonici/Wolfgang Helbich Naxos 8.555705
****
The larger works of the great 17th-century German composer Heinrich Schütz feature only rarely in Irish concert life. Perhaps that's because, as with the two works here, the Musicalische Exequien (also known as the German Requiem) and Die sieben Worte Jesu Christi am Kreuz (The Seven Words of Jesus on the Cross), the music requires performers to handle the German texts with native fluency if the rich musical values of Schütz's writing are to be accurately represented. The German forces assembled under Wolfgang Helbich capture the music with warm sonority and colour. The large team of soloists sing with unforced tone. And the perspective of the recording places everyone in a delicate halo of cathedral reverberation without clouding the detail of a style of music-making which often seems to fit the music like a glove. www.naxos.com - Michael Dervan
RACHMANINOV: SONATA NO 2; PRELUDES; ÉTUDES; MORCEAUX DE FANTAISIE
Zoltán Kocsis (piano) Philips Rosette Collection 476 1643
****
Zoltán Kocsis's 1994 Rachmaninov recital is about as unhackneyed as you could wish. The selection of 11 pieces from the sets of Preludes, Études-Tableaux and Morceaux de Fantaisie steers clear of the concert favourites, and the Second Piano Sonata is given in its original, longer and more technically demanding version. This, if you like, is Rachmaninov unsweetened, some of the music and music-making as gaunt as the man himself. Kocsis is in masterly form and, in a recording that conveys both great clarity of detail and a real sense of space around the instrument, he makes a strong case for the 1913 version of the sonata, which most young keyboard lions still avoid in favour of the 1931 rewrite. www.philipsclassics.com Michael Dervan
MUSSORGSKY/RAVEL PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION; PLUS RIMSKY-KORSAKOV, BORODIN, LIADOV
Cleveland Orchestra/George Szell Sony Classical 5162382
****
Most conductors treat Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition as a brazen Russian orchestral showpiece. At the helm of the Cleveland Orchestra in 1963, George Szell approached it instead with a greater emphasis on French fastidiousness. The ploy is very successful indeed, and if the close recording does have its moments of claustrophobic implausibility, it also captures a range of unusual detail with extraordinary vividness. This latest reissue couples the Pictures with Liadov's Enchanted Lake, and earlier (and rather more open-sounding) recordings of Rimsky-Korsakov's Capriccio espagnol, Mussorgsky's Dawn on the Moskva River and Borodin's Polovtsian Dances, all played with the sharp virtuosity and refined musicianship that characterised the Cleveland's playing in the Szell years. www.sonyclassical.co.uk - Michael Dervan
CD reviews compiled by Tony Clayton-Lea
