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AWARDS SHORTLIST good, but a little more persuasion and reticence along the way might make the passion even more uplifting in the long run. Her sheer velocity can seem driven more by ego than any deeper identification with the music, and the same goes, at least some of the time, for passages of lyrical reflection, where I crave a little more sympathy, a little less domination, with a view to emerging a little less bruised, a little more cherished. In the big dramatic paragraphs of No 3, no barn remains unstormed, no bodice unripped. Occasionally Wang still seems determined to nail the piece to the floor rather than enabling it to take wing, and once again, there are passages in all three movements where the orchestra might as well not be there. All the same, it would be unfair to categorise her as a mere Rambostyle heavy-hitter (easy for piano buffs to enter names here, though we might not always be in agreement). One of the things that makes her playing so compelling is her ability to shape and voice textures where others would be at their wits’ end in coping with the sheer tumult. For the first-movement cadenza she opts for the smaller original version, and it darts, ducks and dives splendidly. Still, I could not but think that the bigger, revised cadenza would have been more commensurate with the scale of the rest of the performance. She sprints into the finale as if determined to break the world speed record, as a consequence finding less room to appreciate the view than others, and with rather less orchestral detail thanks to the balance. The slower central variations are distinguished, and the coruscations of the toccata-like one out of this world. Overall, this a tremendously impressive account, but not one I would necessarily commend to musician friends without a prior health warning. The Fourth Concerto makes a rather march-like entrance, but there is an abundance of poetry thereafter, along with sparkle and caprice. The finale I find energetic and steely almost to a fault, and here and elsewhere I wondered whether the bright-toned instrument had been selected with an ear more towards domination than collaboration. Occasionally, as in all the performances, I felt that an inner part was being spotlit just for the hell of it; but why not, if that’s what the moment dictated? The difference shows up especially by comparison with Abduraimov in the Paganini Rhapsody (Sony, 5/20), whose voicing of the texture is witty and devilishly perceptive. Still, I have nothing but admiration for Wang and Dudamel’s pacing, their characterisation and clarity, their overall balance between drive and flexibility. Hear Wang’s poise and grace in the treacherous 15th variation and tell me this isn’t an outstanding artist at the top of her game. The famous 18th is pulled around, but not so far as to be mangled out of shape, and when the orchestra gets hold of it, the shaping is moulded, but not self-consciously so, at least in my book. Even so, there are other places where the orchestral contribution is once again reduced almost to a sideshow, and I’m far from convinced that this is how the performance would have been heard live. Overall, then, I’m sure I shall return to these performances, if only to remind myself of what is pianistically possible: that in certain passages even Janis can be outJanis‑ed (in No 1), even Richter outRichter‑ed (No 2), even Argerich outArgerich‑ed (No 3) and even Michelangeli out-Michelangeli‑ed (No 4). But for the deepest satisfaction that kind of competitiveness isn’t the point, or shouldn’t be. Meanwhile, the composer’s own recordings are peerless as far as la grande ligne is concerned. There is a reason why all the above are still hailed as classics, why Abduraimov on Rachmaninov’s own piano may one day be so in the Paganini Rhapsody, and why Wang and Dudamel will need to be debated, re-heard and re-debated before such status is conferred. David Fanning Weinberg Concertinos – for Violin and String Orchestra, Op 42a; for Cello and String Orchestra, Op 43bisb. Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes, Op 47 No 3a. Symphony No 7, Op 81c a Tassilo Probst vn bWen-Sinn Yang vc c Andreas Shouras hpd Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich / Daniel Grossmann Onyx (ONYX4237 • 79’) In 1948 Weinberg shared the fate of his fellow composers in the Soviet Union, being castigated for supposed aesthetic sins and told in no uncertain terms to mend his ways. He had even more cause to reflect, given that his father-in-law, the famous Jewish actor Solomon Mikhoels, was murdered on Stalin’s instructions at the beginning of the year, heralding the notorious anti-cosmopolitan (read antiSemitic) campaign. In the aftermath of this dual catastrophe, Weinberg composed much compulsory hackwork. But he also managed to produce gems that negotiate the hazardous path between acceptability and integrity. Three such works are here performed with marvellous understanding and polish by the Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich under their founder, Daniel Grossmann. The Cello Concertino – better known in its later expanded revision as a Concerto – is beautifully done. Wen-Sinn Yang plays with obvious love for the score and conviction in its importance, with sustained lines poised between melancholic inwardness and passionate declamation. Unsurprisingly, the Jewish intonations underpinning all four movements are here brought to the surface and cherished (but thankfully never pushed into caricature). Similarly, Tassilo Probst inflects the long lyrical lines of the Violin Concertino with precisely the blend of wistfulness and indomitable tension that makes Weinberg’s voice so special and so treasurable. Accompanying textures are also imaginatively and idiomatically coloured. Heard with an innocent ear this would already be deeply moving and impressive. Factor in the context and the result is practically heartbreaking. The same goes for the Moldavian Rhapsody, here in the least well-known of its three incarnations, which makes a terrific complement to Oistrakh’s superb and now widely available recording of the violin-and-piano version. The piece is in danger of becoming a hackneyed calling card but here it blazes with inner conviction and emotional authenticity. An obvious completion to the disc would have been the Sinfonietta No 1 of 1949, which is likewise saturated with Jewish intonations. But I’m not complaining at what is, I think, the sixth recording of the Seventh Symphony. This is an altogether harder piece to ‘read’, partly because Weinberg’s musical language had toughened up significantly in the intervening 15 years or so (its composition overlaps with the first conceptual stages of the Auschwitz opera The Passenger, with which it shares a tone of denunciatory harshness). Grossmann and his players get unerringly to the emotional heart of the matter, in a way I don’t recall hearing since Barshai’s pioneering 1967 account (the piece was dedicated to Barshai and written for and premiered by his dream-team Moscow Chamber Orchestra). In short, this is a fabulous disc, which immediately joins my shortlist of most urgently recommendable Weinberg recordings. David Fanning 1616 GRAMOPHONE GRAMOPHONE 2024 gramophone.co.uk
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Contemporar y Award sponsored by L Bedford Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestraa. Instabilityb. In the Voices of the Livingc. Outblaze the Skyd c Mark Padmore ten aArcis Saxophone Quartet; b BBC Philharmonic / Juan José Mena; d BBC Symphony Orchestra / Oliver Knussen; a Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin / Ben Gernon; cLondon Sinfonietta / Geoffrey Paterson NMC (NMCD272 • 74’) bd Recorded live at the Royal Albert Hall, London, d July 28, 2010; bAugust 1, 2015 Although he has had ‘portrait’ releases on Col Legno (12/12) and last year on the Bastille Musique label, this is the first from NMC dedicated to Luke Bedford (b1978) and brings together several works that underline the expressive diversity yet stylistic consistency of his output. It was with a song-cycle, Or voit tout en aventure, that Bedford came to wider attention and In the Voices of the Living (2019) confirms his text-setting as having lost none of its sensitivity. Moving from the prose of Stephen Greenblatt via the poetry of Petrarch, Joyce and Leopardi to an assemblage derived from Shakespeare, the how and why the dead speak through the living is addressed eloquently and affectingly. Mark Padmore is fully attuned to its essence, as too the Arcis Quartet in the Concerto for saxophone quartet and orchestra (2017). Here the six movements are arrayed in a sequence of meaningful contrasts, with elements from earlier movements audibly ‘bleeding’ into their successors to confirm the ‘inevitability of difference and necessity of compromise’ on which Tim RutherfordJohnson remarks in his annotations. With its inspiration in speculative and sexual fantasy, Outblaze the Sky (2006) feels a natural curtain-raiser, the sensuous and almost yearning musical imagery keeping in check a more explosive force that ultimately emerges during the appropriately ‘blazing’ final bars. Yet the most impressive work here is Instability (2015). Originally planned as five movements, its unfolding as a cohesive (almost despite itself) entity is made more engrossing through the sheer variety of sonorities and textures encountered, the implications of its title not in doubt but gradually focusing to a degree that brings continuity if not outright stability. The sizeable forces (including the Royal Albert Hall organ in what was a Proms commission) are heard to alternately visceral and fastidious effect, contributing greatly to this piece’s overall potency. The quality of performances, as of performers, says much for the respect in which Bedford’s music is held. Aficionados and newcomers alike should investigate this release, and maybe NMC could follow it up with his first opera Seven Angels, which is well overdue for revival. Richard Whitehouse Chin Violin Concerto No 1a. Cello Concertob. Piano Concertoc. Chorós Chordónd. Rocanáe. Le silence des Sirènesf f Barbara Hannigan sop aChristian Tetzlaff vn b Alban Gerhardt vc cSunwook Kim pf Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / bMyung-Whun Chung, e Daniel Harding, cSakari Oramo, adSir Simon Rattle Berliner Philharmoniker (BPHR230411 b + Y • 119’ • T/t) Recorded live at the abcefPhilharmonie, Berlin, a April 28, 2005; bMay 10, 2014; fJune 25, 2015; c June 5, 2021; eOctober 15, 2022; dSuntory Hall, Japan, November 25, 2017 Unsuk Chin follows John Adams in getting the full Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings treatment while still alive, and rest assured the honour is deserved. All six works included here underline what a diligent, imaginative and consistently engaging composer Chin is. Hers is music that deserves the parallel qualities brought to it by this illustrious orchestra – and, for that matter, by the beautiful physical product that has been assembled to house the capturing of them. Structure and sensuality are bound tight in Chin’s scores. Her tendency to let you in on a piece’s DNA from the start is evident in the first of her violin concertos, where clarity and logic are put in service of cumulative emotional pull (no accident that it begins, like Berg’s Concerto, with arpeggaic patterning on open strings). Far more interesting than the classical floorplan is what Chin does within her material: how she refracts her themes outwards – the music becoming more fantastical even as it cleaves resolutely to its established geometry. Here as elsewhere in her work, an enchanted forest of orchestration – lusciously irrigated in this instance by the Berlin Philharmonic’s collective sound – is married to a mathematical discipline not just of overall form but of the treatment and expansion of those thematic germs. Clarity is a given, but Chin’s lyrical and contrapuntal flair truly blossom in the final movement, the only one of the four not rooted in the instrument’s open strings. Chin’s concertos for cello and piano have been recorded before by these same soloists and the Seoul Symphony Orchestra (DG, 11/14), the results of which were nominated for a Gramophone Award (the Cello Concerto also has the same conductor, Myung-Whun Chung). There’s not much between the two recordings beyond companions and presentation but the sound picture on the Berlin newcomer is less literal, which suits the Piano Concerto’s echoes of Ligeti. Here is more of Chin’s endearing search for stability in world of fantasy, heard as various impulses come to bear on the interlocking rhythmic patterns woven by the first movement. Messiaen looms behind the second movement’s lacing of laconic harmonic relish with bursts of ecstasy. The whole piece needs maximum precision and receives it here from orchestra and soloist who have, nonetheless, prioritised far more than getting the notes right. That concerto was written for Sunwook Kim, just as the Cello Concerto was for Alban Gerhardt, who can sustain the long legato lines and lyrical turns that emerge as the work moves away from cat-and-mouse games (including a delicious Tom & Jerry upward pitch bend). If Chin reveals her serious sense of humour and ability to tailor to a particular musician in that piece, she goes even further on both fronts in Le silence des Sirènes, a vocal scena written for Barbara Hannigan – more specifically, for her elasticated, stratospheric and chameleonic voice as much as for her characteristic cabaret-meets-monodrama delivery (Chin does well to keep her detailed orchestra gramophone.co.uk GRAMOPHONE GRAMOPHONE 2024 1717

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Contemporar y

Award sponsored by

L Bedford Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestraa. Instabilityb. In the Voices of the Livingc. Outblaze the Skyd c Mark Padmore ten aArcis Saxophone Quartet; b BBC Philharmonic / Juan José Mena; d BBC Symphony Orchestra / Oliver Knussen; a Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin / Ben Gernon; cLondon Sinfonietta / Geoffrey Paterson NMC (NMCD272 • 74’) bd Recorded live at the Royal Albert Hall, London, d July 28, 2010; bAugust 1, 2015

Although he has had ‘portrait’ releases on Col Legno (12/12) and last year on the

Bastille Musique label, this is the first from NMC dedicated to Luke Bedford (b1978) and brings together several works that underline the expressive diversity yet stylistic consistency of his output.

It was with a song-cycle, Or voit tout en aventure, that Bedford came to wider attention and In the Voices of the Living (2019) confirms his text-setting as having lost none of its sensitivity. Moving from the prose of Stephen Greenblatt via the poetry of Petrarch, Joyce and Leopardi to an assemblage derived from Shakespeare, the how and why the dead speak through the living is addressed eloquently and affectingly. Mark Padmore is fully attuned to its essence, as too the Arcis Quartet in the Concerto for saxophone quartet and orchestra (2017). Here the six movements are arrayed in a sequence of meaningful contrasts, with elements from earlier movements audibly ‘bleeding’ into their successors to confirm the ‘inevitability of difference and necessity of compromise’ on which Tim RutherfordJohnson remarks in his annotations. With its inspiration in speculative and sexual fantasy, Outblaze the Sky (2006) feels a natural curtain-raiser, the sensuous and almost yearning musical imagery keeping in check a more explosive force that ultimately emerges during the appropriately ‘blazing’ final bars. Yet the most impressive work here is Instability (2015). Originally planned as five movements, its unfolding as a cohesive (almost despite itself) entity is made more engrossing through the sheer variety of sonorities and textures encountered, the implications of its title not in doubt but gradually focusing to a degree that brings continuity if not outright stability. The sizeable forces (including the Royal Albert Hall organ in what was a Proms commission) are heard to alternately visceral and fastidious effect, contributing greatly to this piece’s overall potency.

The quality of performances, as of performers, says much for the respect in which Bedford’s music is held. Aficionados and newcomers alike should investigate this release, and maybe NMC could follow it up with his first opera Seven Angels, which is well overdue for revival. Richard Whitehouse

Chin Violin Concerto No 1a. Cello Concertob. Piano Concertoc. Chorós Chordónd. Rocanáe. Le silence des Sirènesf f Barbara Hannigan sop aChristian Tetzlaff vn b Alban Gerhardt vc cSunwook Kim pf Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra / bMyung-Whun Chung, e Daniel Harding, cSakari Oramo, adSir Simon Rattle Berliner Philharmoniker (BPHR230411 b + Y • 119’ • T/t) Recorded live at the abcefPhilharmonie, Berlin, a April 28, 2005; bMay 10, 2014; fJune 25, 2015; c June 5, 2021; eOctober 15, 2022; dSuntory Hall, Japan, November 25, 2017

Unsuk Chin follows John Adams in getting the full Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings treatment while still alive, and rest assured the honour is deserved. All six works included here underline what a diligent, imaginative and consistently engaging composer Chin is. Hers is music that deserves the parallel qualities brought to it by this illustrious orchestra – and, for that matter, by the beautiful physical product that has been assembled to house the capturing of them.

Structure and sensuality are bound tight in Chin’s scores. Her tendency to let you in on a piece’s DNA from the start is evident in the first of her violin concertos, where clarity and logic are put in service of cumulative emotional pull (no accident that it begins, like Berg’s Concerto, with arpeggaic patterning on open strings). Far more interesting than the classical floorplan is what Chin does within her material: how she refracts her themes outwards – the music becoming more fantastical even as it cleaves resolutely to its established geometry. Here as elsewhere in her work, an enchanted forest of orchestration – lusciously irrigated in this instance by the Berlin Philharmonic’s collective sound – is married to a mathematical discipline not just of overall form but of the treatment and expansion of those thematic germs. Clarity is a given, but Chin’s lyrical and contrapuntal flair truly blossom in the final movement, the only one of the four not rooted in the instrument’s open strings.

Chin’s concertos for cello and piano have been recorded before by these same soloists and the Seoul Symphony Orchestra (DG, 11/14), the results of which were nominated for a Gramophone Award (the Cello Concerto also has the same conductor, Myung-Whun Chung). There’s not much between the two recordings beyond companions and presentation but the sound picture on the Berlin newcomer is less literal, which suits the Piano Concerto’s echoes of Ligeti. Here is more of Chin’s endearing search for stability in world of fantasy, heard as various impulses come to bear on the interlocking rhythmic patterns woven by the first movement. Messiaen looms behind the second movement’s lacing of laconic harmonic relish with bursts of ecstasy. The whole piece needs maximum precision and receives it here from orchestra and soloist who have, nonetheless, prioritised far more than getting the notes right.

That concerto was written for Sunwook Kim, just as the Cello Concerto was for Alban Gerhardt, who can sustain the long legato lines and lyrical turns that emerge as the work moves away from cat-and-mouse games (including a delicious Tom & Jerry upward pitch bend). If Chin reveals her serious sense of humour and ability to tailor to a particular musician in that piece, she goes even further on both fronts in Le silence des Sirènes, a vocal scena written for Barbara Hannigan – more specifically, for her elasticated, stratospheric and chameleonic voice as much as for her characteristic cabaret-meets-monodrama delivery (Chin does well to keep her detailed orchestra gramophone.co.uk

GRAMOPHONE GRAMOPHONE 2024 1717

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