The latest releases reviewed

SAINT-SAËNS: CELLO CONCERTO NO 1; TCHAIKOVSKY: ROCOCO VARIATIONS; SCHUMANN: CELLO CONCERTO
Andreas Brantelid (cello), Danish National SO/DR/Michael Schønwandt
EMI Classics 213 0382
****
Danish cellist Andreas Brantelid (born 1987) is already well bedecked with prizes and awards, including a period as artist in residence with the Danish Broadcasting Corporation. His debut EMI CD with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra/DR under Michael Schønwandt shows him to be a gifted artist, easy in delivery, eager and sometimes excitable in expressivity, but in a way that avoids forcing of tone. He frequently brings an attractive, almost vocal quality to his phrasing. Brantelid may not yet be as fully at home in Schumann's elusive concerto as in Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variationsor Saint-Saëns's First Concerto, but he's still certainly a performer to watch out for. www.emiclassics.com
MICHAEL DERVAN

SPOHR: CLARINET CONCERTOS 3 & 4
Michael Collins (clarinet), Swedish Chamber Orchestra/Robin O'Neill
Hyperion CDA 67561
***
Michael Collins here completes his survey of the concertos that came out of the important clarinettist/ composer collaboration between Simon Hermstedt and Louis Spohr. Mozart, Weber and Brahms were all similarly inspired by individual clarinettists, but their reputations have never depended on their works for clarinet to the extent that Spohr's does. His writing still stretches soloists to the limits. There's almost a hint of recklessness in the way he hurls the clarinet into the extremity of the high register - Hermstedt was by all accounts a particularly exciting player, and that sense of danger is still key to these works' appeal. Michael Collins rises heroically to the challenges and receives good support from the Swedish Chamber Orchestra under Robin O'Neill. www.tinyurl.com/5jub7c
MICHAEL DERVAN

GINASTERA: COMPLETE MUSIC FOR CELLO AND PIANO
Mark Kosower (cello), Jee-Won Oh (piano)
Naxos 8.570569
****
The music of Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera (1916-83) crops up in concert through his punchy ballet suite Estanciaand occasionally in piano recitals through his early ArgentineDances or his Prokofiev-like First Piano Sonata. The PampeanaNo 2 is liked by cellists for its folksy appeal, and Mark Kosower here conjures up more in a similar mode by arranging the Canciones populares argentinasfor cello and piano. The PuneñaNo 2 for solo cello (one of a set of homages written by 12 composers for the 70th birthday of that great commissioner of music, Paul Sacher, in 1976) and the Sonata for Cello and Piano (1979) show a later style, when Ginastera had moved away from nationalism to a more adventurous and all-embracing style he labelled "neo expressionism".
www.naxos.com
MICHAEL DERVAN

PIANO MUSIC OF BRAZIL
Eduardo Monteiro (piano)
Meridian CDE 84551
***
The earliest work in Eduardo Monteiro's finely delivered survey of Brazilian music, a Nocturne from the 1890s by Leopoldo Miguéz, is heavily influenced by Chopin. The same influence, now thoroughly digested by a strong personality, reappears in the Hommage à Chopinby Brazil's best-known composer, Villa-Lobos, who is also represented by pieces of more specifically Brazilian flavour. Pieces by Oscar Lorenzo Fernandez (1898- 1948) and Francisco Mignone (1896- 1986) wrap nationalist concerns in a svelte pianistic finish. The Tango by Marlos Nobre (born 1939) should appeal to Piazzolla fans, and the stylistically prolix Cláudio Santoro (1919-89) is represented by four mildly jazzy preludes. The major disappointment is the first volume of Cartas Celestasby Almeida Prato (born 1943), who seriously overworks the atmospherics of tremolo.  www.tinyurl.com/6jd68o
MICHAEL DERVAN