May round-up
A quarter of a century has passed since the death of Russian cellist Daniil Shafran. He received similar acclaim to Rostropovich in his homeland, the pair sharing first prizes in various competitions, but the infrequency of Shafran’s performances and recordings in the West left him overshadowed here. Though not to everyone’s taste, many cellists regard his emotionally charged, free-spirited, yet finely nuanced playing as essential listening, and Cello Masterworks contains three particularly fine performances. Shafran glides effortlessly through Schubert’s ‘Arpeggione’ Sonata with beguiling insouciance, while Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata is full of incident without losing sight of the whole. Lydia Pecherskaya is his excellent partner in these New York recordings made a few weeks after their 1961 Carnegie Hall debut. The disc opens with an intimate, yet spritely account of a lifelong Shafran favourite, Haydn’s D major Cello Concerto, captured in Moscow with the USSR State Symphony Orchestra under a youthful Neeme Järvi. (Parnassus, PACL 95008 ★★★★★)
A bracing performance of Haydn’s ‘Lark’ Quartet raises the curtain on a disc devoted to the American Art Quartet. An enterprising West coast ensemble, led by the remarkable husband-andwife team of violinist
Eudice Shapiro and cellist Victor Gottlieb, they epitomised the chamber ideal of music making among friends. As such, a palpable sense of enjoyment shines through, even if their straightforward stylistic approach both to the Haydn and Beethoven’s E flat major ‘Harp’ Quartet rarely sparks the imagination. They are joined in Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet by Benny Goodman, who abandons the flair of his jazz playing for a prim demeanour that’s short of feeling. (Biddulph, 85011-2 ★★★)
Such a charge could never be made of Kathleen Ferrier Sings Bach & Handel. The disc presents Ferrier’s rightly lauded album of arias made with Sir Adrian
Boult conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra, with an additional five equally delectable tracks to make a generous offering. The style is not remotely historically informed and the recorded sound is decidedly dated, but even the hardest of hearts will melt on hearing Ferrier’s achingly beautiful performance of ‘All is fulfilled’. (Alto ALC 1457 ★★★★★)
Another singer at the height of her powers, Jane Manning, can be heard in a digital-only release from new music ensemble Psappha. Written in 1974, Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot was Peter Maxwell Davies’s follow-up to Eight Songs for a Mad King. It may not pack quite the same punch as that work, but it is still an enthralling halfhour tour de force for Manning, while Psappha, performing without a conductor, are no less impressive. An illuminating interview with the composer adds some value to an otherwise modestly proportioned release. (NMC PSA1001 ★★★★)
Pro et Contra is a decidedly different half-hour by Maxwell Davies’s Tatar-russian nearcontemporary Sofia Gubaidulina. A ravishing exploration of subtle and occasionally coruscating colours, this compelling orchestral triptych from the late 1980s is given a taut reading by Johannes Kalitzke and Hannover’s NDR Radio Philharmonic. Two early works complete the disc, Concordanza and Fairytale Poem/ Marchenbild, the latter conducted by Paul Klee. They may be less convincing, but still have plenty of ear-catching moments.
(CPO 999 164 2 ★★★★)