Anne-Sophie Mutter (violin), Lambert Orkis (piano) "Beethoven: Violin Sonatas" (DG, four-disc set)
As anyone who has heard her in concert will testify, Anne-Sophie Mutter is one of the violinistic wonders of the age. She maximises the listener's experience of her instrument, making of it an Aladdin's lamp of beguiling tonal variety and colour. And, never a one to allow the mere symbols on the printed page get in her way, she dallies or rushes as the mood takes her, shamelessly engineering openings to highlight her enviable colouristic endowment. Her liberties would have made men such as Kreisler or Huberman, known for the freedom of their playing, blush. In these live recordings, made after a year-long concentration on Beethoven, it is the composer (appropriately unmentioned on the backs of the CDs themselves) who comes out second best. Mutter fans will treasure the results. Those interested in the music itself should look elsewhere.
By Michael Dervan
Marc-Andre Hamelin: "Medtner: Complete Piano Sonatas" (Hyperion, four- disc set)
Medtner's music, all of it involving the piano, has a ruminative quality and a density of thematic entangling that mark it in a highly personal way. Without either the overt emotional surging of Rachmaninov (a friend and contemporary who called him "the greatest composer of our time"), or the forward-looking inclinations of Scriabin or Prokofiev, his popular appeal has always been limited. As a torch-bearing advocate, Hamelin brings nimble fingers and a sharp mind to music which yields its secrets only reluctantly. This first complete recorded traversal of the 14 solo sonatas, plus the Forgotten Melodies of Opp. 38 and 39, is as triumphant an elucidation as Medtnerites could have wished for.
By Michael Dervan
Camille Saint-Saens: "Samson et Dalila" (Erato)
Samson et Dalila is a marvellous opera, all passion, prayer and perfumed breezes. The action, such as it is, all hinges on the great seduction scene in Act Two, and on this recording the mezzo-soprano Olga Borodina and the tenor Jose Cura make of it a thing of magic, a shimmering, sensual moment of madness in which they seduce not only each other but the listener as well. Neither is a native French speaker, but their occasional lapses in intonation are negligible compared to the incandescent emotions they conjure up. Cura portrays Samson as a tormented, guilty type and creates a rounded portrait, from the cheerful sword-swinging hero in Act One to the blindly vengeful zealot of the final act; Borodina is a full-blooded Dalila; and there's some gorgeous choral singing from the London Symphony Orchestra Chorus under the baton of Sir Colin Davis.
By Arminta Wallace
