Cello Concertos by Elgar & Lutoslawski. Pieter Wispelwey, Netherlands Radio PO/Jac van Steen (Channel Classics)
Pieter Wispelwey, best known as a period instrument player, here tackles two of the major concertos of the 20th century. His approach in the Elgar is less grandly rhetorical than the legacy of Jacqueline du Pre has led us to expect these days. The intimacy is appealing, but there are also touches of self-consciousness that keep him at a distance from the natural fluidity that Elgar himself espoused. The Lutoslawski concerto, premiered by Rostropovich in 1970, recasts the contests and conflicts of concerto-writing in novel and theatrically-engaging ways.
Wispelwey and the Netherlands Radio PO under Jac van Steen carry off its cunningly effective ploys with deftness and wit.
Michael Dervan
Percussion in Concert Vol 2 (Koch Schwann)
The most interesting of the four little-known percussion pieces played here by Peter Sadlo with the Munich Chamber Orchestra under Gilbert Varga is the 1952 Concertino for strings, brass and timpani by Franco Donatoni. Donatoni, now in his early seventies, has long been a leading voice in Italian music, but this early work was written in his mid-twenties before contact with Bruno Maderna had opened him up to the influence of post-Webernian serialism. Bartok is the major audible influence in an accomplished piece from a period of this composer's output not otherwise represented in the catalogue. The other, later works by Martin Christoph Redel, Siegfried Fink and Toshimitsu Tanaka are more eclectic in style, shallower in manner and less memorable.
Michael Dervan