CLASSICAL

Latest CD releases reviewed

TANEYEV: PIANO QUINTET IN G MINOR OP 30; PIANO TRIO IN D OP 22
Vadim Repin, Ilya Gringolts (violins), Nobuko Imai (viola), Lynn Harrell (cello), Mikhail Pletnev (piano) Deutsche Grammophon 477 5419
*****

Is the tide turning for the music of Sergey Ivanovich Taneyev? A pupil of Tchaikovsky and a formidable pianist, Taneyev (1856-1915) numbered Scriabin, Rachmaninov and Prokofiev among those he taught in a career that included a period as director of the Moscow Conservatory and a landmark study of one of his musical obsessions - invertible counterpoint. Pianist Pavel Nersessian, the RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet and the National Chamber Choir have introduced his work to Irish audiences in recent years, and pianist Mikhail Pletnev recently declared him to be "the greatest polyphonist after Bach". This new disc is a gesture of first-rate advocacy. The impassioned commitment of Pletnev and his starry team ignites these recordings of two often knotty, large-scale chamber works, the 44-minute Piano Quintet of 1911, with its clear echoes of César Franck, and the 1908 Piano Trio, which explains rather better why Taneyev was once regarded as a Russian Brahms. www.dgclassics.com

Michael Dervan

BECK: SIX SYMPHONIES OP 1
New Zealand Chamber Orchestra/Donald Armstrong Naxos 8.554071
*****

The Mannheim-born composer Franz Ignaz Beck (1734-1809) spent most of his life abroad, in Venice, Naples, Marseilles and Bordeaux. His music was published in Paris, and the Stabat Mater, which is regarded as his magnum opus, was premiered at Versailles in 1783. The six symphonies of his Op 1 (published as Six Overtures in Paris in 1758) show a brio that's sometimes Handelian, as well as a Sturm und Drang impetuosity and harmonic unpredictability that will appeal to anyone who admires Haydn's middle symphonies. The performances of these attractive and beautifully-crafted works by the strings of New Zealand Chamber Orchestra have a bracing vitality. www.naxos.com

Michael Dervan

DEBUSSY: PRÉLUDE À L'APRÈS-MIDI D'UN FAUNE; LA MER; DEBUSSY/CAPLET LA BOÎTE À JOUJOUX; DEBUSSY/MATTHEWS: 3 PRELUDES
Berlin Philharmonic/Simon Rattle EMI Classics 558 0452
***

This is an enterprising collection, bringing together Debussy's best-known orchestral works with the charmingly allusive but rarely-heard children's ballet, La Boîte à Joujoux (orchestrated by André Caplet), and Colin Matthews's recent orchestration of three of Debussy's Preludes, Ce qu'a vu le Vent de l'Ouest, Feuilles Mortes, and Feux d'Artifice. Rattle's performances of the Prélude à l'Après-midi d'un Faune and La Mer score more highly on the capture of detail than the communication of underlying atmosphere and the pacing does not always persuasively yield the requisite sense of surge. The moments are more striking than the whole. Colin Matthews's orchestration of three Debussy Preludes magically disguises their origin as piano music, although the fascinating elaboration does rather diminish the music's glowing harmonic resonances. www.emiclassics.com

Michael Dervan

KNAIFEL: AMICTA SOLE; PSALM 51
Tatiana Melentieva (soprano), Soloists of Boy Choir, Glinka Choral College, State Hermitage Orchestra/Arkady Shteinlukht ECM New Series ECM 1731
***

Alexander Knaifel, now in his early 60s, wrote the solo cello piece on this new CD, Psalm 51, for his former cello teacher, Mstislav Rostropovich, in 1995. It's a slow, mostly monodic, meditative work, which is intended to reveal the words of the prayer "syllable by syllable, not through verbal means, but through the sounds of the cello". In terms of sound, the nearest analogy is probably the high-flying cello writing of John Tavener's The Protecting Veil. Amicta Sole (Clothed with the Sun), also from 1995, is conceived in the same time-stilling vein, though with rather richer musical resources - solo voice, choir and orchestra. Knaifel, a spiritual rebel in the former Soviet Union, is one of those composers whose pared-back style will strike you as either musically thin or extraordinarily evocative, depending on viewpoint. www.ecmrecords.com

Michael Dervan