Various artists: "BBC Legends"
The new BBC Legends label has trawled the BBC's extensive sound archives and come up with some real winners.
There's Shostakovich's Eighth Symphony, implacable, grim, rivetingly intense, from London in 1960 (Leningrad PO/Evgeny Mravinsky). The gem among three 1960s Stokowski Proms performances (BBCSO) is Falla's El amor brujo, full-blooded and thrusting. There are two landmark performances of Mahler symphonies, a taut, live 1959 Eighth (LSO/Horenstein), credited with launching Britain's Mahler boom, and a warm 1969 Third (Halle/Barbirolli), both on two discs, with conductor interviews. The earliest inclusion, also two discs, is a stirringly old-world Bach B minor Mass (George Enescu with Kathleen Ferrier and Peter Pears) from 1951. The best 1970s taping is a magisterial all-Schubert programme (Royal Festival Hall, 1979) by the great Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter.
By Michael Dervan
"The Great Pianists": International Tchaikovsky Competition, Vol 2 (Melodiya)
How did Barry Douglas do it in 1986, when he became the first Western pianist since Van Cliburn to win the Tchaikovsky Competition outright? On the evidence of his performance of Mussorgsky's Pictures At An Exhibition, he dispensed with caution and fear and let himself go, straining at the limitations of the piano, and the nerves of the audience, to their obvious delight. Mikhail Pletnev, 1978's first prize-winner, playing Shostakovich, Liszt, and his own arrangement of some Shchedrin managed to dazzle while retaining a sense of aristocratic poise. Mischa Dichter (second in 1966) recorded Stravinsky's Three Movements From Petrushka in studio with clear-headed strength.
By Michael Dervan
"Tito Beltran: "A Tenor at the Movies" (Silva Records)
Fans of the effervescent Chilean singer will find their cups brimming over this week: not only does Beltran round off an Irish recital tour with a gig at the NCH tomorrow night, but this new CD twinkles and sparkles its way through a selection of bubbly favourites from the silver screen, from Mario Lanza specials such as Be My Love through The Student Prince to Mi Corazon Continuara (My Heart Will Go On) from Titanic, which Beltran finishes on a pianissimo mezza voce at an altitude that would make Celine Dion blanch. There's just enough Verdi, Puccini et al to keep the opera side going: you'll know all the tunes, but you'll also recognise the unmistakable sound of a tenor on top form and totally at ease with his material.
By Arminta Wallace
