Latest releases reviewed
BACH: CELLO SUITES
Steven Isserlis
Hyperion CDA 67541/2 (2 CDs)
*****
There's a tradition of what you might call grunt in cello playing (as distinct from actual grunting), in which strongly projected tone is equated with all that's desirable in emotional and musical expression. Steven Isserlis's Bach is its polar opposite. His vibrato-light tone is soft-grained but seems infinitely malleable. He can dance with the grace of perfect strength and physique, and sing plaintively, or from the heart, or in celebration, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him. In short, he's brought off that most remarkable of feats: making Bach's six great cello suites sound as if they might well have been written for him. This is unmissable music-making. www.hyperion-records.co.uk MICHAEL DERVAN
QUIJOTES
Carlos Álvarez (baritone), Eduardo
Santamaria (tenor), Xavier Olaz Moratinos (boy soprano), Orquesta
de la Comunidad de Madrid/José Ramón Encinar
Deutsche Grammophon 476 3094
****
Major composers have been interested in Don Quixote since the baroque era, though Richard Strauss has held the crown since the 1890s. The current collection focuses on 20th-century connections, the evocative songs which Ravel and Ibert wrote for GW Pabst's film (Ravel delivered late, and Ibert's music was used), Falla's masterly chamber opera Master Peter's Puppet Show, and Jesús Guridi's little-known Un aventura de Don Quijote, which won a prize in a competition marking the Cervantes tercentenary of 1916. The performances, though not always the subtlest in nuance, are gorgeous in colouring and alluringly recorded. www.deutschegrammophon.com MICHAEL DERVAN
DON QUIXOTE IN SPANISH MUSIC
Coro y Orquesta de la Comunidad de
Madrid/José Ramón Encinar
Naxos Spanish Classics
***
This disc of Spanish rarities mixes a number of dullish pieces by Francisco Asenjo Barbieri (1823-94), Gerardo Gombau (1906-71) and Jorge Fernández Guerra (born 1952) with two altogether firmer works. Joaquín Rodrigo had the charmingly quixotic idea for his filmic 1948 symphonic poem, Ausencia de Dulcinea (Dulcinea's Absence), of writing a work for orchestra, bass (Don Quixote) and four sopranos (Dulcinea). However José García Román's 1994 La resurrección de Don Quijote shows how much easier it is to handle the over- heated obsessions of an off-centre hero with the musical vocabulary of the late 20th century. www.naxos.com MICHAEL DERVAN
HANDEL ARIAS
Russell Oberlin (counter tenor), Baroque
Chamber Orchestra/ Thomas Dunn
Deutsche Grammophon 477 6541
****
Some say that Russell Oberlin was the 20th century's only true counter tenor, the rest being merely falsettists. Oberlin's voice, as captured in these 1959 Handel recordings, is strikingly different from what we now expect of a counter tenor. There's unusual strength, ease and immediacy in the sound (no turbo-lag in tone production), and an absence of bleating, that are more suggestive of a super-masculine mezzo soprano than anything else. The smooth reach across wide intervals is impressive in a musical selection that mostly avoids florid writing. Musically, the delivery is straight, in the plain middle ground of 1950s style. But the voice really commands attention. www.deutschegrammophon.com MICHAEL DERVAN
