Stravinsky, Vol Three. Philharmonia Orch, 20th Century Classics Ensemble/ Robert Craft (Koch International)
Robert Craft is currently surveying on disc those two opposing forces of 20th-century music, Schoenberg and Stravinsky, the one a conservative carried along on what he felt to be a radical historical imperative, the other a radical drawn to loving engagements with the past. In Volume Three of the Stravinsky series, the main work is Pulcinella, the first, and, at the time of its composition, surely the most unexpected of Stravinsky's neo-classical adventures. Craft's approach is clean and unsentimental, taking at face value the composer's word on his music being "a product of motion and rhythm". Misha Dichter is the incisive soloist in the Piano Concerto. The much later Danses Concertantes are tautly sprung, and Charles Neidich provides an individual, precious account of the solo clarinet music.
Michael Dervan
Nielsen: String Quartets Vol 2. Oslo Quartet (Naxos)
The four string quartets of Carl Nielsen have been getting an unprecedented amount of attention on disc and, in this country at any rate, in concert, too. Perhaps it's that they offer something special to performers; after all, Nielsen was a professional violinist himself when he wrote his quartets. The Oslo Quartet, who made a favourable impression on their recent visit to Ireland, have left the early works for the second of their two discs of the Danish composer's quartet output. They find in these pieces rather more evidence of the mature composer than most groups, catching characteristic turns of phrase, and at times the almost Boccherini-like indulgence of a composer going over his material a further time simply because he likes it so much. And the Norwegians manage to turn that pleasure into the listener's, too.
Michael Dervan
Hol: Symphonies 1 & 3. Residentie Orchestra The Hague/Matthias Bamert (Chandos)
The low profile of Dutch music in orchestral life at home is such that the official imposition of a quota system has been raised. The Residentie Orchestra of The Hague is adding to its good track record of supporting the national product with a series that's to concentrate on Dutch music of the last two centuries. The two symphonies here by Richard Hol (1824-1904) were completed in 1863 and 1884, and show the adherence of many minor composers of the latter half of the 19th century to the musical values of the composers who dominated the first half. But, of itself, that's not the major limitation. Hol's honourably solid craftsmanship doesn't yield the melodic memorability, harmonic tension or structural interest of his models, let alone the adventuring flamboyance of some of his greater contemporaries.
Michael Dervan
