Michael Dervanreviews four new releases and finds two to be of five-star quality.
STRAVINSKY: SYMPHONY IN THREE MOVEMENTS; SYMPHONY OF PSALMS; SYMPHONY IN C
Rundfunkchor Berlin, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Simon Rattle
EMI Classics 207 6300
*****
Apart from the Symphony in E flat of his student years, Stravinsky's symphonies are anything but conventional. The most popular, the choral Symphony of Psalmswith its orchestra shorn of violins, violas and clarinets, is the most unorthodox of the three included here.
Simon Rattle scores fully in the glorious ritualistic austerity of this setting of what the composer called "poems of exaltation, but also of anger and judgement, and even of curses". He also relishes the heavy, striding energy of the Symphony in Three Movements, and delights in the finely meshed tensions of the Symphony in C.
The recording is upfront and vivid.
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MICHAEL DERVAN
DINU LIPATTI, THE MASTER PIANIST
Dinu Lipatti (piano)
EMI Classics 207 3182 (7 CDs)
*****
Dinu Lipatti, whose career was cut tragically short at the age of 33 in 1950, was one of the great perfectionists among 20th-century pianists. There is a pristine stylishness to his playing, a selflessness in the pursuit of musical purity that can seem almost saintly. For a player of Apollonian values, he wasn't in the least shy of Lisztian bravura, and his litheness in Ravel's Alborada del graciosois a thing of unique wonder.
This seven-CD set, part of EMI's new Icons series, includes Lipatti's studio recordings, final recital at the Besançon Festival, and three live concerto recordings (including a Bartók Third that's revelatory in spite of rough orchestral playing).
Two of his mentors feature as well: George Enescu (through his Third Piano Sonata) and Nadia Boulanger (as piano duet partner in some Brahms waltzes).
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MICHAEL DERVAN
KANCHELI: AMAO OMI; LITTLE IMBER
Nederlands Kamerkoor, Raschèr Saxophone Quartet/Klaas Stok, Mamuka Gaganidze (voice), Zaza Miminoshvili (guitar), Matrix Ensemble, Rustavi Choir, Children's Choir/Nika Memanishvili
ECM New Series 476 6394
***
The village of Imber on Salisbury Plain is one you won't find on most maps. It was requisitioned for military use during the second World War and still remains a ghost location, a site for training in urban warfare, occasionally opened to the public but no longer a place where anyone can live.
Georgian composer Giya Kancheli's Little Imberstems from a 2003 Artangel project in this strange location, and on disc it sounds like what it must have been, a kind of dolorously nostalgic mood music to buttress a visual impact that can't be reproduced on an audio-only CD. The sounds of choir (to a text of stray words) and saxophone quartet are combined to similarly moody effect in Amao Omi(Georgian for "senseless war").
MICHAEL DERVAN
BEETHOVEN: COMPLETE WORKS FOR PIANO AND CELLO
Antonio Meneses (cello), Menahem Pressler (piano)
Avie AV 2103 (2 CDs)
****
Menahem Pressler, the pianist of the Beaux Arts Trio for more than 50 years, here partners Brazilian cellist Antonio Meneses, 34 years his junior, in the works which form the bedrock of the cello and piano repertoire as we know it today.
No one before Beethoven had paired the two instruments on such equal terms as he did in his sonatas, and Meneses and Pressler's partnership displays the kind of inconspicuous musicianship that enables them to play as if with one musical mind. That musical mind is often gentle in nature, and the two players are relaxed rather than competitive about sharing the musical spotlight - save in the three sets of variations, where the music dictates otherwise.
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MICHAEL DERVAN
