Azerbaijani Piano Concertos

Farhad Badalbeyli, Murad Adigezalzade, Royal PO/ Dmitry Yablonsky Naxos 8.572666***

All of the Azerbaijani composers featured here achieved maturity during the years of the Soviet Union. As such, their music reflects official Soviet concerns with tunefulness and accessibility. The overt ethnic concerns, however, are not likely to provide the kind of tang to excite fans of world music. The flavours are too well integrated into common orchestral practice for that, and the kind of edge that Armenia's Aram Khachaturian commanded in his most popular works is also absent. The joint 1957 concerto "after Arabian themes" by Fikret Amirov and Elmira Nazirova and the 1994 Fourth Concerto by Vasif Adigezalov, voice their appeal easily. But Tofig Guliyev's very brief Gaytagihas an altogether snappier attractiveness. Farhad Badalbeyli's The Seaand Shusha(with soprano Joan Rodgers) are rather too willowy. See url.ie/af6o