The latest releases reviewed
LIVE FROM THE LUGANO FESTIVAL 2007
Martha Argerich and Friends
EMI Classics 518 3332 (3 CDs)
****
There's a lot of high-powered music-making in
EMI's selection of performances from the Progetto Martha Argerich
within the 2007 Lugano Festival. Argerich herself is both songful
and frisky in Schumann's
Scenes of Childhood. She's in sharp form in works for two
pianos by Lutoslawski, Ravel, Schumann and Busoni-enriched Mozart,
and mesmerisingly otherworldly in Bartók's First Violin Sonata
(with Renaud Capuçon). Other pianists explore the less
familiar repertoire, which includes a number of young composer
rarities, a tame teenage Beethoven piano quartet, the sub-Brahmsian
juggernaut that is Dohnányi's C minor Piano Quintet, and
Glinka's Italianate Sextet, with frequent florid lines after the
manner of John Field, from whom the composer had a few piano
lessons.
www.emiclassics.com
MICHAEL DERVAN
BEETHOVEN: SYMPHONY No 3 (EROICA); 12 CONTRETÄNZE; DIE
GESCHÖPFE DES PROMETHEUS (EXC)
Helsingborg SO/Andrew Manze
Harmonia Mundi HMU 807470
****
Violinist Andrew Manze, appointed principal conductor
of Sweden's Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra in 2006, has chosen an
unusual Beethoven compilation for his recorded debut with the
orchestra. Manze traces the theme of the finale of Beethoven's
EroicaSymphony back through the ballet
The Creatures of Prometheusto the set of 12 contredances
in which it first appeared. Manze's approach in the great symphony
is to be observant without overloading the music. The sweep is
impressive, but, curiously, the first movement is not quite as
successful as the later three. The dances are a sheer delight, like
a familiar flavour that somehow stimulates unexpected parts of the
tongue.
www.harmoniaundi.com/uk/news.php
MICHAEL DERVAN
CLEMENTI: PIANO SONATAS VOL 1
Howard Shelley (piano)
Hyperion CDA 67632 (2 CDs)
***
To say that the piano sonatas of Muzio Clementi
(1752-1832) - teacher of John Field, piano manufacturer and music
publisher -sound like Beethoven is not actually a compliment to the
great composer's influence. Clementi was there first. All of the
sonatas in the first volume of Howard Shelley's new Clementi survey
predate any of Beethoven's 32. It's at times extraordinary how
closely Beethoven would model himself on gestures from Clementi's
slow movements. If you only know Clementi from those pieces which
still appear in teaching anthologies, you're in for a pleasant
surprise. Shelley's well-spoken accounts favour balance over the
elements of storminess and unpredictability that other performers
have found in this repertoire.
www.hyperion-records.co.uk
MICHAEL DERVAN
D'AMORE
Garth Knox (viola d'amore), Agnès Vesterman
(cello)
ECM New Series 476 6369
****In the 10 years since he left
the Arditti Quartet, viola player Garth Knox has become an ardent
advocate of the haloed sound of the viola d'amore, a six- or seven-
stringed viola with a set of freely resonating sympathetic strings.
This attractive showcase CD has early arrangements (Marais and
Hume), the superbly idiomatic 1720
Prima Lezioneof Attilio Ariosti, and then leapfrogs over
nearly two centuries to Knox's own
Malor me bat(after a song,
Misfortune batters me, attributed in the 16th century to
Ockeghem), which blends elements of old, new and improvisation. Two
Swiss composers, Roland Moser and Klaus Huber, provide other modern
explorations of the viola d'amore's special resonances, and there's
an altogether earthier world in Knox's own dance arrangements.
www.ecmrecords.com
MICHAEL DERVAN
