Latest CD releases reviewed
SHOSTAKOVICH: SYMPHONIES 1 & 14
Karita Mattila (soprano), Thomas Quasthoff (bass), Berlin Philharmonic/Simon Rattle EMI Classics 358 0772 (2 CDs for the price of 1) ****
Shostakovich took the inspiration for his 14th Symphony, settings of Lorca, Apollinaire, Küchelbecker and Rilke for soprano, bass, strings and percussion, from Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death. At times the music almost bleeds, and there will be no redemption. When the composer was asked if he believed in God, he replied, "No, and I am very sorry about it". Simon Rattle and his soloists are minutely responsive, but miss something of the Russian flavour, though the playing is very alert to the Brittenish moments (Britten was the dedicatee). The pairing with the First Symphony is more than fascinating. Rattle, rightly, makes it utterly different, but also allows unexpected connections to show through. In his hands it sounds like anything but the graduation exercise it actually was. www.emiclassics.com Michael Dervan
HAYDN: SYMPHONIES 14-17
Toronto Camerata/Kevin Mallon Naxos 8.557656 ***
The four Haydn symphonies here, Nos 14-17, all date from the early 1760s and nowadays find their audience more often on CD than in the concert hall. It's a rather unjust state of affairs, for, as the great Haydn scholar HC Robbins Landon put it, the works are notable for "their amazing strength of style, a vivid, forceful language that makes the quick movements leap off the page, teeming with a young man's contented energy". Kevin Mallon is vigorous and bracing in the fast movements, plaintive in the slower ones, although his agile Toronto players sound somewhat generalised in their responses by comparison with the best accounts of these works. The opening Allegro molto of Symphony No 14, the first piece on the disc, gives a good idea of the strengths of his approach. www.naxos.com Michael Dervan
ANTAL DORATI, A CELEBRATION
Various Orchestras/Antal Dorati Decca 475 7615 (6 CDs) ****
The Hungarian conductor Antal Dorati (1906-88) made history through his complete recordings of Haydn's symphonies and operas. This centenary celebration focuses elsewhere, on the music of his teachers (Bartók, Kodály, Leo Weiner, all treated with idiomatic flair), his own Trittico (from the horse's mouth), Stravinsky (Dorati spent many years working in ballet, and it shows), as well as composers he might less readily be associated with: Copland, Bizet, Debussy, Dvorak, Johann Strauss, Richard Strauss, Wagner and Tchaikovsky. The music-making is characterised by an engaging, rude vitality, the orchestral discipline is tight, the colouring bright, perhaps too much so for Debussy. Most of the recordings were taped with the orchestras Detroit and Washington (where Dorati held posts), the expatriate Philharmonia Hungarica and the Concertgebouw. The abiding impression is of a man whose joie de vivre flowed easily into his music-making. www.deccaclassics.com Michael Dervan
PROKOFIEV: ROMEO AND JULIET (EXC)
Royal Concertgebouw/Myung-Whun Chung Deutsche Grammophon Entrée 477 5011 ****
Not many conductors are content to relay the suites from Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet as the composer compiled them. Myung-Whun Chung intermingles the movements from the first two, and includes just one excerpt from the third. When his selection was first issued in 1994, there were complaints to the effect that the 63-minute playing time could valuably have been extended to include some of the music Chung chose to omit. Now, at a much lower price in DG's Entrée series, aimed at newcomers to classical music, the complaints fall by the wayside. The conductor glories in the colourful scoring in what has to be the most classily tuneful of 20th-century ballets, and both performance and recording are top class. www.dgclassics.com Michael Dervan
