Latest releases reviewed
STANFORD: STRING QUARTETS 1 & 2; HORN FANTASY Stephen Stirling (horn), RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet Hyperion CDA 67434 ****
The New Grove, usually meticulous about issues of nationality, lists Dubliner Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) as "British composer, teacher, conductor". Music lovers south of the border seem to view him in the same light, and the most concerted Irish efforts to revive his music have been witnessed in Belfast. The British-born, British-trained RTÉ Vanbrugh Quartet, based in Cork since 1986, has recently taken up his cause in concert, and now on disc. They are estimable advocates of his estimable music, whose virtues of balance and construction struggle to register persuasively, rather like the message of a play or novel plugging a good cause, but without the spark of passion necessary to ignite an audience's concern. It's actually the Fantasy for horn and string quartet, written in 1922 in the style of the 19th century, which shows most expressive bite. www.hyperion-records.co.uk Michael Dervan
SCHUMANN: CELLO CONCERTO; BRUCH: KOL NIDREI; BLOCH: SCHELOMO Truls Mørk (cello), Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/Paavo Järvi Virgin Classics 545 6642 ***
Norwegian cellist Truls Mørk here beguiles the ear with such a melting beauty of tone, it's no wonder he's tempted to linger a little self-admiringly. The effect in Schumann's already elusive, late Cello Concerto is to turn it more than ever into a kind of private, sometimes even secretive communion between soloist and orchestra. There are moments of sheerest magic, and others where an essential continuity of songful line seems to get lost in the process. Similarly, the rhetoric of Bruch's Kol Nidrei and Bloch's Schelomo is often turned inward in performances that come from a fascinating angle, yet don't quite manage to be consistently persuasive. www.virginclassics.com Michael Dervan
GERMAN OVERTURES Vienna Philharmonic/Christian Thielemann Deutsche Grammophon 474 5022 ****
Christian Thielemann seems to be by nature a tie-down-the-detail, graphic kind of musician, and his work on disc has been rather hit-and-miss. His selection of 19th-century romantic German overtures is peopled with the spirits of the underworld, and contains evocations of startling phenomena, both natural and supernatural. Thielemann's self-conscious moulding of the fantastical, heroic and witty excursions of Mendelssohn (Midsummer Night's Dream; The Hebrides), Weber (Euryanthe; Oberon), Wagner (Rienzi), Nicolai (Merry Wives of Windsor) and Marschner (Hans Heiling) is the sort of thing that often gets short critical shrift outside of the conductor's native ambit. The interpretative thumb-printing is in his familiar style, but these performances with the Vienna Philharmonic are, in their own terms, finely conceived and executed, and they grew on me with repeated listening. www.dgclassics.com Michael Dervan
VIVALDI: IL CIMENTO DELL'ARMONIA E DELL'INVENTIONE OP 8; CONCERTO IN D FOR TWO VIOLINS RV513 Louis Kaufman, Peter Rybar (violins), Concert Hall CO/Henry Swoboda, Winterthur SO/Clemens Dahinden Naxos Historical 8.110297-98 (2 CDs) ***
Naxos are claiming Louis Kaufman's 1947 New York recording of Vivaldi's Four Seasons as the first ever. They're wrong. That honour fell to Italy's Orchestra dell'Accademia di S. Cecilia under Bernardo Molinari in 1942. Never mind. Kaufman's version, here coupled with the remaining concertos of Vivaldi's Op. 8, recorded in Switzerland in 1950, makes for fascinating listening. The playing is gutsy and fresh, the manner close to modern thinking in its freedoms, though sometimes anything but in the specific musical gestures employed. If you're averse to portamento in baroque repertoire, sample carefully before purchase. Don't expect the technical finesse that long familiarity has brought to modern players in this repertoire. But do be prepared to encounter a sense of vital commitment in the playing. www.naxos.com Michael Dervan
