HOMAGE A CHOPIN

Jonathan Plowright (PIano)

With a handful of complete editions on CD out already, this is a year that’s going to be full of tributes to Chopin. Jonathan Plowright has, unusually, created his bicentenary homage by collecting 13 Chopin- inspired pieces by other composers, with the most substantial being sets of variations by Ferruccio Busoni and Federico Mompou. The earliest possible (Schumann) and most extreme examples (Godowsky’s Studies) are left out in favour of a variety of unexpected flavours, with love and reverence and stylistic evocations popping out in the most unusual ways, and fully indulged in Plowright’s playing. My vote for the surprises of the disc go to Lennox Berkeley’s obsessive Mazurkas and Heitor Villa-Lobos’s blustery Hommage à Chopin, which strays much further from Chopin than most of the composers allowed themselves. www.url.ie/4qdb

London Symphony Orchestra/Bernard Haitink

LSO Live LSO 0689

Richard Strauss’s Alpine Symphony was once among the most derided and least frequently heard of the composer’s large-scale orchestral works. But the tendency to regard it as orchestral tissue without music (to borrow a phrase Ravel used about his own Bolero) has faded. Audiences have come to appreciate the indulgence and sheer ingenuity of the depiction of an eventful day on the peaks. Bernard Haitink is a well-prepared mountaineer. He doesn’t lose his grip or his head, and he keeps the whole in a judicious perspective that makes some of the bigger moments all the more impressive for not having their thunder stolen. However, if you want a performance that sets your heart racing, you’ll have to look elsewhere. www.url.ie/4u5f

SPOHR: DER FALL BABYLONS OVERTURE; SYMPHONY NO 3; SYMPHONY NO 6 (HISTORICAL SYMPHONY)

CDA 67788

Purcell. Mozart, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky all did it. So why not the once extremely famous Louis Spohr (1784-1859)? Revisiting past stylesis not a practice you’d associate with Spohr at his peak in the post- Beethoven world of the mid-19th century. But his Historical Symphony of 1839 genuflects in turn to the styles of Handel and Bach, Mozart and Haydn, Beethoven, and the “very latest” period. The fusion of styles is as fascinating for a modern listener as it appears to have been perplexing to his contemporaries. The “very latest,” by the way, is not Spohr’s own style, but the gaudy, percussion- rich finish of the Paris Opera. Spohr’s own mild-flavoured romanticism is represented in the other works on this genial-sounding disc. www. url.ie/4qdb

Instrumental Ensemble of Contemporary Music, Paris/Konstantin SimonovichXenakis: Atrees; Morsima-amorsima; Nomos Alpha; Herma; ST/4; Polla Ta Dhina; ST/10-1080262; Akrata; Achorripsis

EMI Classics 687 6742 (2 CDs)

EMI's bargain-priced 20th Century Classics series is turning up some genuine gems. These Xenakis recordings date from the late 1960s, a time when the composer's work ( Metastaseisof 1954) was still controversial enough to cause walkouts at a symphony concert in Dublin.

Listeners of today are more likely to be thrilled by the visceral energy, which is well caught in these performances. Nomos Alpha, for solo cello, and Herma, for solo piano, are emblematic of the ways in which Xenakis stretched the bounds of the possible for performers. And Polia Ta Dhinamakes startling use of children's choir.

www.emiclassics.com