Latest CD releases reviewed
THE CRIES OF LONDON
Theatre of Voices, Fretwork Harmonia Mundi HMU 907214 ***
This collection is based around Elizabethan composers' settings of the hues and cries of street vendors. Alongside the well-known work of Orlando Gibbons, there are also contributions from Thomas Weelkes and Richard Dering, who extends himself to a country version. The pieces are sung and played with sophistication and gutsiness, sometimes with intentionally yokel-ish pronunciation. You couldn't and you wouldn't ask for more. The question is, would you ask for that much in the first place? The musical settings constitute something of an overdose, in spite of the leavening of viol consorts and the attractive breathy echo effects in verse pastorals by Michael East that break up the disc. Even with the aid of notes unravelling the subtexts, this fascinating disc needs to be taken in small doses. www.uk.hmboutique.com Michael Dervan
Håkan Hardenberger (trumpet), Gothenburg SO/Peter Eötvös Deutsche Grammophon 20/21 4776150 ****
Two of these trumpet concertos written since 1998 were composed for Swedish phenomenon Håkan Hardenberger, and the third (the Eötvös) for Markus Stockhausen. As ever, exceptional performers prompt composers to make exceptional demands. Here they range from handing a cadenza fully over to the performer, requiring the soloist to sing and play at the same time, forcing him to work with a partly dismantled instrument, and even a stint on the cow-horn. Turnage's From the Wreckage, in his big-band-flavoured style, offers the most conventional blend of lyricism and high-wire virtuosity. Eötvös mostly favours a darker kind of struggle, and pride of place goes to the spaced-out, moody, broody, and later 1930s-nostalgic Gruber. It's a sobering thought that this single disc may well contain more viable trumpet concertos than the entire 19th century managed to yield up. www.dgclassics.com Michael Dervan
Die 12 Cellisten der Berliner Philharmoniker EMI Classics 357 0302 ***
The 12 cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic have for decades performed as a self-standing if rather unlikely ensemble. Their new CD, polished as ever in presentation, is a mixed bag. The pieces by Astor Piazzolla, which inspired the album title, come off with a resiny conviction, and the performance of Arvo Pärt's Fratres is pin-point and poignant. Arrangements of Bach, Mendelssohn and Verdi succeed, sometimes against the odds. But neither the vocals of Jocelyn B Smith, nor the choral contribution of the Berliner Rundfunkchor in the great lament from Carissimi's Jephtha, really convince. Debussy's La Cathédrale engloutie is a mismatch for the players' sound-world, and Markus Stockhausen's Miniatur (eine Seelenreise), with Stockhausen on trumpet, is beautifully played but musically thin, and mostly treats the cellos as synthesiser proxies. www.emiclassics.com Michael Dervan
Robert Barto (lute) Naxos 8.557806 ****
The great JS Bach was an admirer of Silvius Leopold Weiss (1687-1750), the greatest lutenist of his day and a prolific composer for his instrument. The 13-course lute for which Weiss wrote has an impressively extended bass range as well as a palette of subtle expressive inflection that puts the guitar to shame. At least, that's how it sounds in Robert Barto's expert hands. The seventh volume of Barto's survey of Weiss's music for Naxos includes substantial sonatas from early and late in the composer's career, No 15 in B flat, and No 48 in F sharp minor. If you don't know Weiss's work you may be surprised that such a master is so little known. The late sonata, with daring chromaticisms in its Sarabande, is particularly fine. www.naxos.com Michael Dervan
