Classical

The latest releases reviewed

MEDTNER: VIOLIN SONATA NO 3 (EPICA); THREE NOCTURNES; FAIRY TALE OP 20 NO 1 Laurence Kayaleh (violin), Paul Stewart (piano) Naxos 8.570298 ***

The small body of Nikolai Medtner's chamber music has rather languished in the shadow of his far more numerous piano works as interest in his output has grown in recent years. Laurence Kayaleh and Paul Stewart's survey of his complete works for violin and piano begins with the biggest, the Third Violin Sonata of 1938, a romantic epic which runs to three-quarters of an hour. Their playing is tasteful and accomplished, but somehow also rather dutiful, and the players don't manage to make the grandness of scale persuasive. They sound altogether more at ease in the shorter Nocturnes that Medtner wrote three decades earlier. www.naxos.com MICHAEL DERVAN

MAHLER: SYMPHONY NO 5 Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich/Georg Solti Decca 475 9153 ****

This CD originates from the Swiss radio recordings of what turned out to be the last concerts Georg Solti would conduct before his death in September 1997. Interestingly, the disc appears at the same time as another Mahler 5 from the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela under rising star Gustavo Dudamel on Deutsche Grammophon. The Venezuelans win on colour and finesse, but Dudamel is a distracting guide to Mahler, and gives too much attention to passing details. The playing under Solti may be rougher, and the conductor's familiar climactic urgings are clearly to be felt in the edge of the music-making. But the symphony holds together much more cogently, and says rather more under his experienced guidance. www.deccaclassics.com MICHAEL DERVAN

TEREZÍN/THERESIENSTADT Anne Sofie von Otter (mezzo soprano), Bengt Forsberg (piano), Christian Gerhaher (baritone), Gerold Huber (piano), Daniel Hope (violin) and others Deutsche Grammophon 477 6546 ****

The concentration camp at Terezín (Theresienstadt) in the Czech Republic held many creative artists, and was used by the Nazis as a sham showcase. In recent decades, the music written by composers incarcerated there, has been the focus of much attention. Viktor Ullmann and Pavel Haas (whose operas have been produced in Ireland) are among the nine composers on this new CD, which also features an amount of music in cabaret style, where the clearly expressed longing takes on extraordinary dimensions. The most substantial works are Haas's Four Songs on Chinese Poetry and Erwin Schulhoff's Sonata for solo violin. The performances are first-rate. www.deutschegrammophon.com MICHAEL DERVAN

ERKKI-SVEN TÜÜR: SYMPHONY NO 4 (MAGMA); INQUIÉTUDE DU FINI; IGAVIK; THE PATH AND THE TRACES Evelyn Glennie (percussion), Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Estonian National Male Choir, Estonian National SO/ Paavo Järvi Virgin Classics 385 7852 ***

Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür's Symphony No 4 (Magma) was commissioned as a percussion concerto by Evelyn Glennie. For composers, the colouristic and gestural cliches of Glennie's arsenal prove a tempting, Siren- like lure towards effects. But the piece lacks the kind of energy that Tüür (a founder member of the rock group In Spe) has created in earlier compositions. The other works on the new CD all show a more focused and mostly rather more sombre side to a composer whose work often exploits the tension between the upwardly striving and the earth-bound. www.virginclassics.com MICHAEL DERVAN