Clara Haskil Legacy Vols 1 & 2 (Tahra)
Clara Haskil (1895-1960), the Romanian pianist who gave her name to the piano competition recently won by Finghin Collins, was a player who made the most out of the least. It wasn't that she was in any way technically under-resourced (though physical disability was a constant companion), but that she seemed always able to realise her musical conceptions with the greatest economy of means. These two live recitals are from the early 1950s, one from Hilversum, the other (slightly truncated) from the Edinburgh Festival. The Hilversum disc is the one to go for, including as it does a flexibly luminous account of Schubert's late B flat Sonata, fully outshining Haskil's studio version, plus a noble Bach Toccata, a fleet Haydn Sonata, and a selection from Schumann's Bunte Blatter.
- Michael Dervan
Schoenberg: Verklarte Nacht; Strauss: Metamorphosen; Sextet from Capriccio. Brandis String Quartet (Nimbus)
Until 1994 Strauss's Metamorphosen was known in concert only in its final version for 23 solo strings. Strauss was working on a string septet when a commission arrived from Paul Sacher for a piece for a large string group, and the composer metamorphosed his original project into its now familiar guise. The realisation of the septet played here was carried out by Rudolf Leopold. Inevitably it doesn't have the sheer mass or textural richness of the familiar score, although the Brandis Quartet and friends muster some impressive tonal lustre in its presentation. Tonal lustre, impassioned as it is, proves a not entirely successful alternative to purposeful clarity of harmonic movement in Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht.
- Michael Dervan
Lully: Grand Motets Vol 1. Le Concert Spirituel/Herve Niquet (Naxos)
How the fortunes of French baroque music have changed in recent years! Time was when the issue of a recording of any sort would have been a pretty rare event. Now it's not only the likes of William Christie's Les Arts Florissants on major labels who are supplying the market; the issues flow on the super-budget Naxos label, too. Lully is best known through his music for the theatre, both ballets and operas. But it's on his religious music that Le Concert Spirituel are now focussing, bringing together his best-known works in this style (the Te Deum and Miserere with Plaude laetare Gallia). With its major contrasts of celebratory praise and pleading for mercy, the disc makes a good introduction to a valuable body of work.
- Michael Dervan
