Strauss: Josephs-Legende. Staatskapelle Dresden/ Giuseppe Sinopoli (Deutsche Grammophon)
Richard Strauss's ballet Josephs-Legende gave the composer a lot of trouble. It was written for the Ballets Russes, and Nijinsky was the intended Joseph. But the great dancer fell out with Diaghilev, and the role went to Massine. Strauss's dilemma was that "The chaste Joseph himself isn't at all up my street, and if a thing bores me I find it difficult to set it to music." Here, he was in the same position as Mozart writing for mechanical organ, or Tchaikovsky forcing himself to deliver instalments of The Seasons for a magazine commission. Strauss's hour-long score is all powder, no substance, an exercise in which orchestral garb is everything. The conductor here, Giuseppe Sinopoli, revels in the sonic splendour of that strand of Strauss which Stravinsky characterised as "triumphant banality".
By Michael Dervan
Geminiani: Concerti Grossi. Academy of Ancient Music/Andrew Manze (violin) (Harmonia Mundi, 2 CDs)
The Italian violinist and composer Francesco Geminiani (1687-1762) spent much of his life in London before moving to Dublin, where he died at the age of 74. The concertos here are elaborate arrangements of the celebrated Op. 5 Violin Sonatas by his teacher, the great Corelli, and they were aimed at an English market for domestic music that had only one original set of concertos by Corelli to turn to. There's an appealing plaintiveness in the sonatas which doesn't really survive their transformation into concertos. But, as you listen to the famous Folia in its fantastical orchestral guise - and there's no better man for baroque fantasy than Andrew Manze - you won't feel you're missing anything. The art of elaboration is variously explored in two bonus sonatas by Corelli and Geminiani.
By Michael Dervan
Bruckner: Symphony No 1 (1866). RSNO/Georg Tintner (Naxos)
It's with yet another unusual version of a Bruckner symphony that the late Georg Tintner's admirable cycle reaches completion. This "unrevised Linz version" established in 1998 by William Carragan offers, in Tintner's words, "this remarkable work exactly as it was heard by the rather bewildered audience in Linz" at its 1868 premiere - the greatest differences from the familiar Linz version are in the Finale. Tintner also includes an 1876 version of the Adagio of the Third Symphony to broaden further our view of that work. The performances with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra show the best characterstics of Tintner's Bruckner style. The pacing is spacious but never slack, the careful dynamic scaling and firm rhythmic tread combine to allow climaxes to make their full, imposing point.
By Michael Dervan