Classical

The latest classical CDs reviewed

FELDMAN: PATTERNS IN A CHROMATIC FIELD

Arne Deforce (cello), Yutaka Oya (piano) Aeon AECD 0977 (2 CDs)★★★★★

It's frozen. At the same time it's vibrating, said Morton Feldman of the stasis of his music, music that is full of paradoxes. The sounds are typically tiny, but the scale is big – 88 unbroken minutes for Patterns in a Chromatic Field(1981). It always seems to be repeating itself, but microscopic changes ensure that it doesn't. Even at its most simple- sounding, its gorgeous surfaces provide nightmares of control and co-ordination for performers. Patterns is for cello and piano, probably not as you've heard them before, but as strange as if from an imagined sci-fi future. Deforce and Oya make it sound at its floating, wispy, occasionally stutteringly explosive, ravishing best. Four shorter pieces from 1950-1960 illustrate the earlier Feldman.

MICHAEL DERVAN

VENEZIA, 1625

Maurice Steger (recorders), Ensemble Harmonia Mundi HMC 902024★★★★★

If the recession is getting you down, if you're feeling floored by the recent emergency budget, this CD may be just the thing to cheer you up. Maurice Steger, virtuoso supreme of the recorder, and an ensemble of 14 musicians (playing nearly 30 instruments between them) gorge on the fantasy-rich dynamism of instrumental music in 17th-century Venice. Check out the pluck-fest accompaniment to two warbling recorders in Uccellini's Aria sopra la Bergamasca, the excitedly twittering recorders in Merula's Chiaccona, or the low-pitched quacking of a bass dulcian in Fontana's Sonata IV. Whether it's through its delight in madcap flamboyance or its care with expressively probing chromaticism, this is a collection to lift anyone's spirits. www.tinyurl. com/6mchwb

MICHAEL DERVAN

BRUCKNER: SYMPHONY NO 5

Orchestre des Champs Elysées/Philippe Herreweghe Harmonia Mundi HMC 902011★★★

Philippe Herreweghe’s ongoing Bruckner cycle with the Orchestre des Champs Élysées present the Belgian conductor as a perplexing Brucknerian. The period instruments of his orchestra are less weighty in tone than their modern counterparts, and the outcome allows light into some unexpected corners. But the benefits are smallish in a performance where the grandeur of Bruckner at his grandest often sounds unnecessarily diluted. The massive and monumental aspects are played down, and a symphony that’s genuinely awe-inspiring rarely sounds fully itself. Rather than the “cathedrals of sound” that Herreweghe claims to aim for, the quality you’ll find is an often coolish, Mendelssohnian neatness and balance. www.tinyurl.com/ 6mchwb

MICHAEL DERVAN

ORCHESTRAL WORKS BY GOLDMARK & DOHNÁNYI

Various performers EMI Classics Gemini 264 3192 (2 CDs)★★★

Károly Goldmark (1830-1915) and Ernö Dohnányi (1877-1960) were two Hungarian composers whose reputation has faded to the point that they now seem like one-work wonders. This new set in EMI's bargain-basement Gemini series expands that perspective. André Previn is an affable guide to Goldmark's magnum opus, the charming Rustic Wedding Symphony, but the high point is Sarah Chang's sweetly fluent 1999 account of his Violin Concerto. Cristina Ortíz flies through the hoops of Dohnányi's popular Nursery Variations, where a portentous introduction leads to high-jinks with Twinkle, twinkle, little star. Extra perspective is provided by Goldmark's overture Der gefesselte Prometheus (conducted by James Conlon) and Dohnányi's Concert Piece for cello(with János Starker). www.emi classics.com

MICHAEL DERVAN