CLASSICAL

Latest releases reviewed

If you listen to this disc from the beginning you have to wait through John Corigliano's undistinguished Red Violin Chaconne and Franz Waxman's sometimes outrageously kitschy adulterations of Enescu and Wagner to get to the one work of real substance, John Adams's Violin Concerto of 1993. The composer has described this piece as "hypermelody," with the violin spinning "one long phrase after another without stop for nearly the full thirty-five minutes". Chloë Hanslip's unfurling of this mostly ruminative work effortlessly combines the easy rise and fall of speech and the lyrical uplift of song, and Leonard Slatkin is with her all the way. She has the necessary sprung energy, too, for the busy finale. Pity about the couplings, even if they are well done. www.naxos.com

VIVALDI: 7 CELLO CONCERTOS
Jonathan Cohen, Sarah McMahon (cellos), The King's Consort/Robert King
Hyperion CDA 67553
*****

It's all too easy to overdose on Vivaldi. But this disc, my third new Vivaldi concerto collection in a couple of months, is another real pleasure. Soloist Jonathan Cohen and conductor Robert King find the expected pathos and wit in the music. But they also tease the ear a little, with effects of shaping, bringing moments of CPE Bach-like unpredictability to the writing - which, with Vivaldi's familiar cleverness, is rather more varied than you might expect in a young genre of which he was the instigator. The dark-grained burnish of Cohen's tone is an asset, and the Callino Quartet's Sarah McMahon is a lively partner in the single work for two cellos, the Concerto in G minor RV531. www.hyperion-records.co.uk

SONGS AND ARIAS
Galina Vishnevskaya (soprano)
EMI Classics 365 0082 (3 CDs)
*****

The Russian soprano Galina Vishnevskaya turns 80 next month, and EMI has issued a three-disc set to mark the occasion, songs by Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich (the Op 109 Satires and the later Blok Romances, both written for her), with a handful of opera arias for good measure. Vishnevskaya was a magnetically commanding presence on stage - a "life force", suggests John Steane in his evocative booklet essay. In the act of performing she often seemed to take possession of composer and listener alike. In these typically heart-piercing recordings from the 1970s Vishnevskaya is accompanied on piano and on the rostrum by her husband, Mstislav Rostropovich, who takes up his cello only for the Blok settings, where the other musical partners are Ulf Hoelscher (violin) and Vasso Devetzi (piano). Sadly, no texts or translations are provided for this treasurable set. www.emiclassics.com

IT AIN'T NECESSARILY SO
Jascha Heifetz (violin), Milton Kaye, Emmanuel Bay (piano)
Deutsche Grammophon 477 6269 (2 CDs)
*****

The great Vilnius-born violinist, Jascha Heifetz, was kept away from the recording studio in the early 1940s due to a protracted dispute between the American Federation of Musicians and the record companies. Then, between 1944 and 1946 he was contracted to American Decca and recorded mostly short arrangements, many of which he never recorded again for his regular label, RCA. The material is mostly light, ranging from classical arrangements to popular hits (including White Christmas), and two collaborations with Bing Crosby, for whom Heifetz also penned a song under the name Jim Hoyl. The playing exhibits the extraordinary balance of grace, swing, intensity and precision which made Heifetz's name a byword for perfection. DG, which now owns the rights to these recordings, has here included a fascinating recording of Heifetz away from the violin, playing his Crosby song as a piano solo. www.deutschegrammophon.com