The latest releases reviewed.
English violinist Adrian Chandler rounds off his three-disc survey of the early North Italian concerto with a disc subtitled The Golden Age. He tops and tails the collection with striking pieces by the master of the genre, the "Red Priest" Antonio Vivaldi.
Both concertos (RV569 and RV562a) provide generous soloistic display for wind instruments, and there's riotously prominent timpani in the second work.
Chandler obviously delights in showing the variety and range of the music he's surveying, and only one of the concertos here (by Tartini) restricts itself to a single soloist - the one by Sammartini is actually titled Concerto à più stromenti. The remaining pair of works show the often quirky Locatelli in a genial light. www.tinyurl.com/6elqzv
MICHAEL DERVAN
IVES: SONGS; ENSEMBLE & ORCHESTRAL PIECES
Marni Nixon (soprano), John McCabe (piano), Henry Herford (baritone), Ensemble Modern/Ingo Metzmacher
EMI Classics 206 6312
****
This issue in a new, low-priced American Classics series from EMI couples the bulk of a fine early 1990s Ives portrait collection conducted by Ingo Metzmacher with 13 songs recorded by Marni Nixon and John McCabe in 1967. Nixon, who dubbed the singing voice of many a Hollywood actress (including Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady and Natalie Wood in West Side Story) handles Ives with an unvarnished quality that suits the off-the-cuff, diary-entry-like nature of the songs. Metzmacher focuses on Ives the intrepid, uncompromising explorer who, during the first two decades of the 20th century, wrote pieces that have never shed the power to shock, startle and disturb. www.tinyurl.com/64odcp
MICHAEL DERVAN
Music doesn't come much more upbeat than Handel's 1727 coronation anthem, Zadok the Priest, still a great favourite with choral societies. The Organ Concerto in A is one of the composer's most delightfully playful works, delivered here by Richard Marlow with delicate wit and in ravishing colours. The Dettingen Te Deumof 1743, the longest work here, was written to celebrate a military victory over the French. Stephen Layton drives it with the full-toned enthusiasm he brings to Zadok. But even his fresh- voiced singers, blazing trumpets and thundering drums can't hide the fact that this work often finds Handel working at less than full heat. www.tinyurl.com/5jub7c
MICHAEL DERVAN
Many hands went into the Hungarian Danceson this disc. Brahms worked with original gypsy material, borrowed tunes in that style written by others (he was openly accused of plagiarism), and wrote some from scratch. The originals were for piano duet, and his good friend the violinist and composer Joseph Joachim (himself Hungarian) made the arrangements for violin and piano, which Brahms approved of - Joachim restored effects impossible on the keyboard and made some other modifications. Hagai Shaham here gives them what you might call the royal gypsy treatment in terms of rubato and inflection. Joachim's own Variations are both earnest and flashy as well as technically demanding. www.tinyurl.com/5jub7c
MICHAEL DERVAN
