Musica Non Grata (BMG)
Five new Musica Non Grata discs celebrate composers who, in various ways, trod on the toes of Soviet authority. In the 1920s and 1930s the fascinating but long side-lined Alexander Mossolov (1900-73) wrote futurist works which still pack a considerable punch. The mechanical orchestral grinding of The Iron Foundry is the best known, but there's a phenomenal energy, too, in the raw urban celebration of his First Piano Concerto; Prokofiev at his steeliest is genteel by comparison. The spiritually-driven, anti-urban Avet Terteryan (1929-1994) predicated symphonies, at once sonically exploratory and rudimentary, on the culture of the single note. Vyacheslav Artyomov (b. 1940), favours slowly-moving Masses with affinities to minimalism and the cluster-filled music of Baltic composers. The other discs cover Edison Denisov and the recently deceased Alfred Schnittke. Michael Dervan
Reger: Piano Concerto; Strauss: Burleske. Barry Douglas, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/Marek Janowski (RCA)
Max Reger (1873-1916) crammed a lot of composing into his short life. The Piano Concerto, written in 1910, was already his Op. 114, and he liked to move mountains of lateromantic, jungle-dense counterpoint through ever-shifting harmonic sands; you might imagine the pages of a typical Reger score as the note-spattered black of a mad genius in a Ralph Steadman drawing. Barry Douglas is just the man to keep a clear head in the face of the frequently strenuous clamour of the Piano Concerto. In its wake, Strauss's early Burleske sounds like light relief, all air, light and - in Douglas's hands - easy brilliance. Michael Dervan
Placido Domingo: "Por Amor" (WEA)
Lounge lizards, look out: there's a new kid on the block. For this selection of popular songs by the Mexican songwriter Agustin Lara, Placido Domingo abandons his operatic make-up and shimmies through such slinky numbers as Granada, Noche De Ronda (Be Mine Tonight) and Solamente Una Vez (You Be- long To My Heart), trailing mariachis and marimbas behind him. The glorious Domingo voice - though not sounding as relaxed in this repertoire as you might expect - can still pass an occasional shiver down the spine, but all the same there are a few bum notes, including a helpful accompanying interview in which the tenor attributes to his version of Granada "a pop feeling that could even be heard in a discotheque!" (Gee, thanks, Placido) and the extraordinarily unsubtle photo of the stamen of a lily inside the cover. Can the series - Agustin Uncovered - be far behind? Arminta Wallace
