This week's Classical CDs reviewed

MAGNARD: SYMPHONIES 1-4
BBC Scottish SO/Jean-Yves Ossonce Hyperion Dyad CDD 22068  (Two CDs)***

Albéric Magnard (1865-1914) died in 1914 defending his property against German soldiers, who set fire to his house while he was inside, after he had shot and killed at least one of their number. Musically, he came under the sway of Wagner, and his music often seems to pull in contradictory directions, heavier  in presentation than its ideas seem to warrant, its obvious lyrical inclinations tied down by earnestness. Nowadays, he reaches his listeners on CD or radio rather than in the concert hall (though The Irish Timesdigital archive mentions an RTÉ performance of his Third Symphony in 1950). He's an honourable, mildly intriguing presence following in the footsteps of Franck and d'Indy, well served in these 1997 recordings that have been reissued as a two for the price of one set. www.tinyurl.com/5jub7c MICHAEL DERVAN

PIANO SONATAS BY JOHN WHITE & ALUN HODDINOTT
Colin Kingsley, Valerie Tryon Lyrita REAM.2108 (Two CDs for the price of one) ***
There's nothing quite like the piano sonatas of 72-year-old English composer John White. The four
early ones here (numbers one, four, five and nine, written between 1956 and 1960) are just the tip of the iceberg. The total is now 166, but the fundamental characteristics were set out at the start – the stylistic eclecticism, the finish that falls somewhere on the spectrum between diary entries and stream of consciousness, and the evocation of the spirit of piano composers past and present. The late Alun Hoddinott's first two sonatas (1959 and 1962) are more finely balanced and crafted, but without anything of the freewheeling rush of ideas that can make White so fascinating. Lyrita's dryish mono recordings from the early 1960s come up cleanly. www.wyastone.co.uk  MICHAEL DERVAN

SIBELIUS: NIGHT RIDE AND SUNRISE; PAN AND ECHO; BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST; TWO PIECES OP 45; KUOLEMA
New Zealand SO/Pietari Inkinen 8.570763****
Pietari Inkinen became principal conductor of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra last January,and makes his debut with the RTÉ NSO with music by Gerald Barry, Beethoven and Shostakovich on February 6th. On the evidence of this CD of Sibelius it's easy to hear why orchestral managements would be so interested in a conductor who has yet to turn 30. His tempos are measured. The opening of Night Ride and Sunrise is less concerned with flight than with traversing a changing landscape; the famous Valse triste (from the Kuolema music) is done with a deep, slow nostalgia. And he gets sonorities that are focused and full from the New Zealand players to create an attractive selection of mostly off-the-beaten-track Sibelius. www.naxosdirect.ie 
MICHAEL DERVAN

VIVALDI: SEVEN CELLO CONCERTOS
Han-Na Chang (cello), London Chamber Orchestra/Christopher Warren-Green EMI Classics 234 7910 ***
Korean cellist Han-Na Chang made a big impression in her RTÉ NSO debut two years ago (she'll be back for an NCH celebrity recital in May). She's a player with an abundance of technique and temperament, and bringing it all to bear on seven concertos by Vivaldi produces mixed  results. She gauges the scale of the music more in terms of her personal resource than of its actual demands. There's plenty of agility, and actually no shortage of down-played, soft-spoken intimacy. But the quietest passages are too much on the lines of special effects to sound persuasively natural. And
at the other end of the scale her impetuosity leads her to moments of over-emphasis. As cello playing, it's wonderful, but not quite persuasively Vivaldian. www.emiclassics.com  MICHAEL DERVAN