Krenek: Cello Works. Geringas, Klein, Deutsches SO Berlin/Hanns-Martin Schneidt (Koch Schwann)
Ernst Krenek (1900-91) achieved the height of his fame with his "jazz opera" Jonny spielt auf in 1927. He had already been a radical atonal expressionist, a neo-classicist, and would later write neo-Schubertian song-cycles, adopt Schoenberg's 12-note technique, and engage with the technology of the electronic studio. His output was large, running to over 240 opus numbers. Apart from the lighter moments of Jonny, he has a reputation, largely justified in my experience, for offering audiences a stiff listen. Of the five works here, it's the smallest, a 1939 suite for solo cello and Dyophonie for two cellos of 1988, which show the warmest side of his musical character. The Second Cello Concerto is the best of the works with orchestra.
Michael Dervan
Victor de Sabata (Pearl, 2 CDs)
It's surprising how often orchestral players of the midcentury nominate - as Hugh Maguire did in these pages five years ago - Victor de Sabata as the greatest of the conductors they worked under. Or maybe it seems so because of the paltry size of his recorded legacy, a significant proportion of which appears in this Pearl set. The 1939 recordings with the Berlin Philharmonic are justly renowned. He delivers Brahms's Fourth Symphony with sinewy lucidity, not an ounce of spare fat. The Pre- lude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde unfold within a time-stilled raptness (the set also includes four excerpts from a 1930 La Scala performance). Strauss (Tod und Verklarung), Respighi (Feste Romane) and Kodaly (Dances of Galanta) bring out the virtuoso in him. The sometimes hissy transfers are very clear.
Michael Dervan
Prokofiev: Symphonies 1-4; Hamlet. USSRSO/Gennady Rozhdestvensky (Melodiya, 2 CDs for the price of one)
Gennady Rozhdestvensky has long been one of the great champions of the music of Prokofiev. This new set brings together his 1960s recordings of the first four symphonies with a 1988 recording of the incidental music for a Leningrad performance of Hamlet in 1938. After his tuneful and witty first symphony, the Classical, Prokofiev moved into an altogether more dissonant mode, for a work "of iron and steel" whose unpopularity dismayed him. The Third and Fourth borrowed from other works, the opera The Fiery Angel and the ballet The Prodigal Son, and the symphonic credibility of all three has long been questioned. Rozhdestvensky is as persuasive an advocate as you'll get of Prokofiev at his most determinedly modernist.
Michael Dervan