Ghedini: Cello Concertos (Koch Schwann)

Giorgio Federico Ghedini (1892-1965), a major figure in mid-century Italy, now rests in a posthumous oblivion; not many people know the name, let alone recognise the music. The three pieces here, Musica Concertante (1962), Invenzione (1941) and the Concerto for two cellos (1951), all share a delicately rapt, static quality. Ghedini is in love with the touch and fabric of his material. He turns it over, looks at it this way and that, and in different lights, but you don't really feel he wants to do anything with it. There are moments like Stravinsky stretched out and texturally elaborated, others where the air of earlier centuries and the quiet ecstasy bring the worlds of two unrelated Englishmen to mind, Tippett and Tavener. Werner Thomas-Mifune and Antonio Meneses respond with aptly cushioned tone.

By Michael Dervan

The 20th-century Violin Concerto Vol 1 (Philips Duo). The 20th-century Piano Concerto Vol 1 (Philips Duo)

Philips are capitalising on the passing of the 20th century with concerto surveys in their two-for-the-price-of-one Duo series. The music in the first sets all predates 1945: Sibelius, Ravel, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Berg, Khachaturian for violin; Falla, Prokofiev, Gershwin, Stravinsky, Ravel and Bartok for piano. As with much of the output in the Duo series, Philips have mostly called on recordings made by major artists in the 1960s. Szeryng, Oistrakh and, most memorably, Grumiaux (Ravel, Berg) cover the violin works. The range is wider for piano: Byron Janis, Eugene List, Zoltan Kocsis, and, cream of the crop, Stephen Kovacevich, sharp and sensitive in Bartok's Third and Stravinsky, and Clara Haskil, exquisitely evocative in Falla.

By Michael Dervan

Violin and Cello Concertos (Pearl)

There has always been such a fuss made about the young Yehudi Menuhin's 1932 recording of the Elgar Violin Concerto with the composer conducting, it would be easy to imagine it to have been a first. But, no. Albert Sammons got there three years earlier, with the New Queen's Hall Orchestra under Henry Wood. With rugged orchestral playing and brisk speeds, the piece comes across as more genuinely concerto-like, the musical argument taut, but without ever pressing unduly on moments of inwardness. And Sammons meets all its demands with unfailing musicianship. W.H. Squire's recording of the Cello Concerto, with the Halle under Ireland's greatest conductor, Hamilton Harty, is plainer in style, not emotionally wrought a la Du Pre, but always noble in delivery. A coupling worth exploring.

By Michael Dervan