Latest releases reviewed
BEETHOVEN: PIANO CONCERTOS 2 & 3
Martha Argerich (piano), Mahler CO/Claudio Abbado Deutsche Gramophon 477 5026
*****
The great violinist Fritz Kreisler didn't practise, he said, because he wanted to keep his interpretations fresh. When Alfred Brendel, then still in his twenties, first recorded Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto, he had never performed it in public. More remarkably, when Martha Argerich, at the age of 62, recorded the same concerto in a concert with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra earlier this year, she was playing it in public for only the third time. The free-spirited Argerich can sound a little too frisky and angular in Beethoven. But on this occasion, working with one of her favourite conductors, Claudio Abbado, the spontaneity and drive seem perfectly in balance with the music. Sample from the fiery first movement cadenza to the softly-spoken slow movement for an idea of the range of Argerich's achievement. Abbado and his young players are admirable partners, and the Second Concerto, recorded four years ago, is of a standard to match. www.dgclassics.com Michael Dervan
PETRASSI: CONCERTOS FOR ORCHESTRA
Netherlands Radio SO/Arturo TamayoStradivarius STR 33700 (2 CDs)
****
Bartók (1943) and Lutoslawski (1954) wrote the most famous concertos for orchestra. But Hindemith (1925) wrote the first, and Italian composer Goffredo Petrassi (1904-2003) wrote the most, a series of eight between 1934 and 1972. There's a confident, neo-classical stride to the First, with more than a passing nod to Hindemith, as well as a sure orchestral mastery which characterises the whole series. The four concertos of the 1950s (Nos 2-6) find Petrassi edging towards the avant-garde, and there's a real explosive violence to the Eighth, "written between a kind of rage and a kind of exaltation". The concertos form an impressive and important body of work, cooler and more objective in manner than the music of Petrassi's better-known contemporary, Dallapiccola, yet always engaging in the strongly argumentative thrust of these new performances. www.harmoniamundi.com Michael Dervan
RODOLFO HALFFTER: ORCHESTRAL WORKS VOL 1
Orchestra of the Comunidad de Madrid/José Ramón Encinar Naxos Spanish Classics 8.557623
***
Madrid-born Rodolfo Halffter (1900-87) came early under the sway of Manuel de Falla, but from 1939 lived in voluntary exile in Mexico. He took Mexican citizenship, and became credited as the first Mexican composer to embrace twelve-tone technique. Only one piece on this new CD post-dates that achievement, Paquiliztli (1983), a droll piece for seven percussionists. The Obertura concertante (1952), with a prominent part for piano solo, and the Obertura festiva (1952), are also witty, and sound French, somewhere between Satie and Poulenc. The suites from two ballets, Don Lindo de Almeria (1935) and La madrugada del panadero (1940), are folksily tuneful, but not memorably so. www.naxos.com Michael Dervan
MOZART: SONATA FOR TWO PIANOS; FANTASIA K608; ANDANTE AND VARIATIONS K501; SCHUBERT: FANTASIA IN F MINOR
Murray Perahia, Radu Lupu (two pianos & piano duet)Sony Classical 517490 2
****
The recorded two-piano and piano duet collaborations of Murray Perahia and Radu Lupu, all made between 1984 and 1990, show two leading artists playing some of the finest music in this rarely-heard repertoire with exceptional bonhomie. Sony's re-compilations of the original two LPs now see two of the duo's harmonious Mozart performances (Mozart's Andante and Variations in G for piano duet and Busoni's two-piano arrangement of his Fantasia in F minor, K608) filling up two separate CDs. My choice would be for Schubert's Fantasia in F minor - one of the peaks of the piano duet repertoire - and the miraculous intertwinings of Mozart's Sonata for two pianos. The alternative coupling has Mozart's Two-Piano Concerto, and his not quite first-rate Three-Piano Concerto in a version for two pianos. www.sonyclassical.co.uk Michael Dervan
