These musical pleasures are strikingly illuminated
John Allison finds magic in this collection of spirited performances led by Patricia Kopatchinskaja
Plaisirs illuminés
F Coll: Les plaisirs illuminés; Ginastera: Concerto for Strings; Veress: Musica concertante; plus works by Bartók, Kurtág and Ligeti Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin), Sol Gabetta (cello); Camerata Bern/francisco Coll Alpha Classics ALPHA580 75:26 mins Two threads run through this adventurous disc – the spirit of Béla Bartók and the Camerata Bern’s prowess – but the force of personality at the centre of it all comes from the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, who since 2018 has been ‘artistic partner’ of the ensemble. It opens with Sándor Veress’s Musica concertante per 12 archi, written in 1965-6 for the then newly formed Camerata Bern, and which in this performance comes across with fiery, searing spirit.
Veress had been a pupil of Bartók, and in turn taught both Ligeti and Kurtág, so miniatures by these three composers (played by Kopatchinskaja with different members of the ensemble) fit beautifully here: the ultra-concise ‘Jelek VI’ from Kurtág’s Games, Signs and Messages, the quirky Pizzicato from Bartók’s 44 Duos for Two Violins, and the haunting Baladă și joc by Ligeti.
Bartók’s folk-music spirit extends even to Francisco Coll’s Les plaisirs illuminés, a double concerto (in which Kopatchinskaja is joined by the equally compelling Sol Gabetta) inspired by the Dalí painting of the same name and written in 2018 for these Bern forces. Though the Camerata usually plays without a conductor, this challenging score really needs one and Coll (making his conducting debut) obtains an impressive performance. Folk roots are audible in the ‘flamenco on speed’ third movement, and the work concludes with an intricately interwoven ‘Lamento’. The third substantial work is Ginastera’s Concerto per corde, which through its use of folkinspired quartertones evokes a musical sort of magic realism, culminating in a virtuosic finale. Far from being anti-climactic, an improvised postscript clears the air at the end of this extraordinary disc. PERFORMANCE ★★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★★
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Elmas
Piano Concertos Nos 1 & 2 Tasmania Symphony Orchestra/ Howard Shelley (piano)
Hyperion CDA68319 73:12 mins
Here’s one of the most obscure discoveries in Hyperion’s long-running Romantic Piano Concerto series. According to the informative booklet note, Stéphan Elmas (1862-1937) was a widely admired child prodigy pianist, and enjoyed the distinction of being the first composer of Armenian descent to write piano concertos. He dedicated a set of Études to Liszt in 1884 and befriended influential musicians such as Jules Massenet. After a severe hearing loss in
1897, his career took a nosedive. Settling in Geneva, aged 50, Elmas withdrew from public life, becoming increasingly bitter at his isolation.
Judging from these two works, Elmas’s musical idiom was hardly original, owing a great deal to Chopin. His piano writing is highly idiomatic, and he has an uncanny knack of writing memorable lyrical melodies for the slow movements in both these works. On the debit side, his opening movements are far too long-winded and discursive for their own good, and there is too much reliance on bombastic passage work. Nonetheless, it would be hard to find a more highly committed advocate for this music than Howard Shelley who masters all the considerable technical challenges of these works with consummate ease, and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra offers sturdy and reliable support throughout. Erik Levi PERFORMANCE ★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★
Violin Concerto in C minor,
Op. 5/5; Concerti grossi – Op. 3 Nos 1 & 5; Op. 10 Nos 3-5 Lidewij van der Voort (violin); La Sfera Armoniosa/mike Fentross Challenge CC72829 60:09 mins Contemporary with Bach and Handel, Willem de Fesch was a native of Holland where he was a celebrated violinist. In 1731 he moved to London where he lived
Camerata Bern’s performances come across with fiery spirit
until his death 30 years later. Though better known nowadays for his sonatas and concertos Fesch was an early pioneer of English oratorio, the lone survivor of which, Joseph, was discovered in 1980.
Fesch’s music is unfailingly attractive, notwithstanding Dr Burney’s withering assessment of it as ‘in general dry and uninteresting’. The present disc features concertos from three sets issued between around 1717 and 1741. Corelli, on the one hand, and Vivaldi on the other were clearly strong influences. Indeed, in the opening movement of Op. 5 No. 5 we might be forgiven for believing, if only momentarily, that it had been penned by the Venetian. The concerto features a solo violin whose expressive and sometimes technically challenging role perhaps affords us a glimpse of Fesch’s own skill as a player. This fine work is the high point of a wellchosen programme.
Several of the concertos featured here have been recorded in the past, but performances of this calibre make a valuable gesture towards redressing undeserved neglect. Just occasionally, as in the A minor Concerto Grosso, there are rough edges in the upper strings, but they hardly detracted from my enjoyment. This is, after all, a live recording, with applause at the end. In short, here is a pleasing overview of Fesch’s concerto writing, some favouring four movements, others three. Unhelpfully, no movement details are provided in the accompanying documentation. Nicholas Anderson
PERFORMANCE ★★★
RECORDING ★★★
Christian Lindberg
Liverpool Lullabies;
Waves of Wollongong; 2017 Evelyn Glennie (percussion);
New Trombone Collective;
Antwerp Symphony Orchestra/ Christian Lindberg (trombone)
BIS BIS-2418 (CD/SACD) 72:00 mins
In 1997, long fêted for his prodigious artistry as a trombonist, Christian Lindberg discovered an equal flair for composing. More recently, he has won accolades as a conductor.
This ebullient album reveals him a force of nature in all three roles alongside superb collaborators including an ever-agile Antwerp Symphony Orchestra.
As soloist and new music commissioner, Lindberg has always revelled in the trombone’s possibilities. In The Waves of Wollongong (2006-9), a piece he considers ‘a milestone for me as a composer for large orchestra’, he puts a whopping nine trombones up front in a kind of choir electrically performed by the New Trombone Collective. Memories of the Australian ocean inspired Lindberg to envision the trombones as different-sized waves. From surging ascending scales and splashing dissonances to rugged, briny melodies – and rich fanfares recalling Gabrieli’s Venice – the fecundity and juxtaposition of the material dazzles while weaving into a satisfying whole.
Again in Liverpool Lullabies (2015-16), a double concerto for trombone and percussion based on memories of the city and childhood lullabies, the apparently incongruous is rendered fantastically akin. Vividly played by Lindberg and Evelyn Glennie, flashes of savagery add spice to a dynamic mix that sweeps into jazzy tenderness with ease.
Lindberg’s theatrical instinct takes a darker turn in 2017,a response to the year which saw Trump take office amidst deepening environmental crisis. With Shostakovian irony, the orchestra skitters and bludgeons through seven sections with titles like ‘Fake News’ and ‘The Bragger’ that say it all. Steph Power
PERFORMANCE ★★★★★
RECORDING ★★★★★
Piazzolla
Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas* (arr. Albonetti); Romance del Diablo (arr. Albonetti); Oblivion (arr. P Ziegler); Años de Soledad (arr. Albonetti); Libertango (arr. Albonetti); plus P Ziegler: Improvisation on ‘Oblivion’
Marco Albonetti (saxophone), *Cesare Carretta (violin), *Virgilio Monti (double bass), *Alessandra Gelfini (piano); Orchestra Filarmonica Italiana
Chandos CHAN 20220 54:19 mins Distinctive artistry is all too often only fully appreciated after a musician has died. While this is not broadly the case for Astor Piazzolla, it was commemorations of the composer’s death in 1992 that brought him to the attention of the saxophonist Marco Albonetti. It was love at first listen: since then, the Italian has become a leading Piazzolla expert, undertaking research in Buenos Aires for his doctoral studies. Albonetti’s scholarly understanding of the nuevo tango informs his latest orchestrations of Piazzolla’s music, performed here alongside the Orchestra Filarmonica Italiana.
A colourful rendition of Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas – also known as The Four Seasons of Buenos
Aires – forms the cornerstone of the collection. The four pieces were originally scored for quintet – the bandoneón parts (the Argentinian concertina played by Piazzolla) work surprisingly well transcribed for soprano saxophone.
The Four Seasons are interspersed with the wistful Romance del Diablo, Años de Soledad (featuring baritone saxophone), the famous Libertango and Oblivion (arranged by Piazzolla’s former pianist, composer Pablo Ziegler). The sentimentality of the latter is leavened with a haunting improvisatory prelude, accompanied by a repetitive single bass note. Altogether, a stand-out success among recent arrangements for saxophone (Jess Gillam’s Rise and Time, Ferio Quartet’s Revive; Marci Saxes’s Origin). Claire Jackson PERFORMANCE ★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★
Romberg
Violin Concertos Nos 4, 9 & 12 Chouchane Siranossian (violin); Capriccio Barockorchester
Alpha Classics ALPHA452 76:50 mins
A slightly older contemporary of Beethoven, Romberg has suffered the inevitable fate of being sidelined by musical history. The violin was his instrument, and at least 20 concertos are extant, with the musical language moving from the classical world of Mozart and Haydn to something more Beethovenian. Idiomatically conceived for the soloist, they go beyond mere display, but don’t always manage to escape from formula, nor come up with striking ideas.
Capriccio Barockorchester means business right from the tightly rhythmic opening of the Fourth Concerto, with the bright sound emphasising the gutsy attack of the strings and tang of the winds. After that, Chouchane Siranossian’s first entry is less convincing, both in tonal consistency and intonation, and this is particularly exposed in leaps and at speed: she sounds more comfortable in lyrical music at the lower end of the range. The pacing of the music is convincingly flexible,