Xenakis: and other works for percussion. Peter Sadlo (Koch Schwann)
The German percussionist Peter Sadlo planned his latest CD as a sort of panorama of solo percussion music in the late 20th century. He has included works for solo marimba (by Toshimitsu Tanaka and Hans Werner Henze), solo vibraphone (Christopher Deane), a pair of cymbals (Nicolaus A. Huber), solo snare drum (Wolfgang Reifender) and timpani (Elliott Carter), as well as a multi-percussion climax in Rebonds by Iannis Xenakis, surely the greatest master of percussion writing in our time. The smaller pieces explore some interesting techniques - pitch-bending for vibraphone, and playing snare drums upside down. But it's the big names that provide the best rewards, especially Xenakis, whose Rebonds is given a performance of authoritative restraint.
Michael Dervan
The Essential Lutoslawski (Philips Duo)
Now, following Naxos's pioneering bargain-priced Lutoslawski series, comes a two-for-the-price-of-one set from the Philips archives. It's a strong collection, spanning over 40 years of repertoire, from the Paganini variations of 1941 to the Third Symphony of 1986. The composer himself conducts the Berlin Philharmonic in the symphony and the 1970 Cello Concerto (soloist Heinrich Schiff) as well as in Les espaces du sommeil, with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. The set is rewardingly representative of a figure who moulded avant-garde techniques developed by others to his own ends in works of impeccable craftsmanship and wide appeal.
Michael Dervan
Chopin: 4 Ballades; Prelude Op 45; Fantasy in F minor. Maurizio Pollini (Deutsche Grammophon)
There was a time when, after winning the 1960 Chopin Competition at the age of 18, Maurizio Pollini seemed to be shaping up to be the Chopin player of the second half of the century. Paradoxically, it was the perfectionist career landmark of his cool, impeccably-finished recording of the two sets of studies that turned the tide. Coolness and emotional distance have by and large been a feature of his recorded Chopin since that time. This new set of the four Ballades is of a warmer cast. The glintier edges are now gone from the tone, the rubato flexes with a greater sense of ease. But the head still rules the heart, and it's in Pollini's musically perceptive intellectual rigour that the greatest rewards of this latest collection are to be found.
Michael Dervan
