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GRAMOPHONE AWARDS SHORTLIST 2018 There are so many moments here that bring a smile to a jaded Mozartian’s face: little holdings back, touches of ornamentation, that magical moment in K595’s slow movement where the piano’s song is shadowed only by flute and violins, exquisitely done here. You may be getting the impression that I rather like this record. I wouldn’t (couldn’t) go without recordings by other longtime favourite pianists (two of whom are invoked above); but then, Anderszewski is a favourite pianist too, and his coupling joins theirs without fear of compromise. David Threasher (2/18) Piano Concerto No 25 – selected comparison: Argerich, Orch Mozart, Abbado (3/14) (DG) 479 1033GH Piano Concerto No 27 – selected comparison: Pires, Orch Mozart, Abbado (1/13) (DG) 479 0075GH Prokofiev ‘Visions of Prokofiev’ Violin Concertos – No 1, Op 19; No 2, Op 63. Cinderella, Op 87 – Grand Waltza. The Love for Three Oranges – Grand Marcha. Romeo and Juliet, Op 64 – Dance of the Knightsa (aarr T Batiashvili) Lisa Batiashvili vn Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Yannick Nézet-Séguin DG F 479 8529 (60’ • DDD) It was a nice idea to spice a logical Prokofiev concerto coupling with a trio of transcriptions, the musician who crafted them so skilfully Lisa Batiashvili’s father, Tamás. Years ago the Cinderella Grand Waltz was seductively turned by David Oistrakh, part of a sequence of five pieces from the ballet arranged by Mikhail Fikhtengolts. In fact Alto has released a CD featuring Oistrakh’s vintage Melodiya recordings of these jewels alongside the two violin concertos (ALC1318), the First under Kondrashin, the Second under Galliera, wonderful performances all of them, and so full of character. Batiashvili effectively echoes Oistrakh’s warmth and there’s a definite boon in having an orchestral accompaniment securely led by Yannick Nézet-Séguin rather than Yampolsky’s piano, excellent though that is. It was Heifetz who most famously gave us the Love for Three Oranges March on the violin; and although the March of the Knights from Romeo and Juliet works reasonably well – especially in such a powerful performance – by concentrating on a single voice the transcription rather pushes the piece off balance. But these are just the fill-ups, after all. As to the concertos, Nézet-Séguin cues a fine-spun accompaniment at the start and close of No 1, whereas he, the COE and Batiashvili collude for a carping attack at the centre of the Scherzo, rather like Gringolts and Neeme Järvi do in the same passage. Some tempo changes are quite violent: in the first movement of the First Concerto, for example, at the point where the soloist switches to a wildly strumming pizzicato (6’07” in this context), though I like Batiashvili’s gentle swagger earlier on in the movement. She perfectly captures the music’s sardonic spirit without overdoing the aggression. I also appreciate her freeflowing way with the solo opening of the Second Concerto, her subtle use of portamento and the sweetness of the first movement’s second subject. The bittersweet second movement, which is ideally paced, has an appropriate air of chasteness about it, and as always Nézet-Séguin keeps woodwind lines well to the fore. That said, this admirable trait becomes a mite distracting at 1’33” into the finale of the First Concerto, where the bassoon’s presence is so conspicuous that for a while you’re aware of nothing else, or at least I was. But otherwise I was grateful for having so much detail brought to my attention. As to selected rivals, I retain a strong affection for Frank Peter Zimmermann with Lorin Maazel in the First Concerto and James Ehnes with Gianandrea Noseda in the two coupled together; but if you haven’t yet heard David Oistrakh in No 1 (preferably the Kondrashin version – Melodiya, 8/63) and Jascha Heifetz in No 2 (under Charles Munch – RCA, 1/61) then, thinking in terms of Prokofiev’s violin concertos, you haven’t lived. Batiashvili is a very fine advocate of both works who lacks just an element of personality. Rob Cowan (3/18) Violin Concerto No 1 – selected comparisons: FP Zimmermann, BPO, Maazel (12/88R) (EMI/WARN) 206860-2 Gringolts, Gothenburg SO, N Järvi (9/04) (DG) 474 814-2GH Vivaldi The Four Seasons, Op 8 Nos 1‑4. Concertos – ‘L’amoroso’, RV271; ‘Il grosso mogul’, RV208; ‘Il riposo per il SS Natale’, RV270 Brecon Baroque / Rachel Podger vn Channel Classics F Í CCSSA40318 (75’ • DDD/DSD) It feels slightly unoriginal to begin a review by quoting that old adage, ‘the best things come to those who wait’. However, those words do feel especially pertinent for Rachel Podger’s Vivaldi Four Seasons, which she has finally put on disc in her 50th-birthday year, joined by her superlative one-to-a-part ensemble of fellow period-instrument leading lights, Brecon Baroque. It’s not just that the actual playing is superb: serene virtuoso fluency from Podger, gorgeously supported by her colleagues, with some especially fine chamber matching from violinists Johannes Pramsohler and Sabine Stoffer. It’s also that this is something genuinely, effortlessly and naturally different. At the nub of this triumph is the thought that’s gone into timbre and balance across the four concertos, because I’ve never heard their every twist and turn served up as quite the succession of changing sound worlds as appears here. Take Spring’s ear-catching central Largo: while Brecon Baroque are hardly the first ensemble to place a spotlight on that barking-dog viola, it’s less usual to hear the solo violin as far back as Podger has been placed, or the viola’s crescendo at the end. It’s then all change again for the final Allegro, Jan Spencer’s violone cranking up the drone effect to especially zinging levels, complemented by the subtlest of peasanty inflections from the violins. Other notable expressive detailing include the bringing out of Daniele Caminitti’s expressive theorbo-playing in Summer’s opening movement, where also to be savoured are the wistful inflections with which Podger has coloured her tight trills. Also the way shestretches out the central Adagio’s final top G to almost hit the dramatic final-movement thunderstorm, itself brilliantlycoloured with sul ponticello effects. Then there’s the soft organ and theorbo continuo underpinning Autumn’s buoyant, luminously ringing first movement. Or,xperhaps most glorious of all, Winter’s fireside Largo: a luxuriously tactile, tranquil feast of glowing ensemble raindrops whose beauty caught me completely off guard, topped by Podger’s sensitively embellished solo line. Podger and her team have been generous too, adding three further Vivaldi concertos, all of which have beenrealised with an equal ear to the scorings’ possibilities for timbral flair. Even had they not done, though, this still would have been a Four Seasons to covet and keep. Charlotte Gardner (5/18) 14 GRAMOPHONE SHORTLIST 2018 Click on album covers to buy from gramophone.co.uk
page 15
Contemporary GRAMOPHONE AWARDS SHORTLIST 2018 Award sponsored by Dean . Francesconi Dean Dramatis personae Francesconi Hard Pace Håkan Hardenberger tpt Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra / John Storgårds BIS F Í BIS2067 (59’ • DDD/DSD) I can’t find any evidence to corroborate the booklet note’s suggestion that Brett Dean’s trumpet concerto Dramatis personae is a preparatory work for the opera Hamlet, which opened two weeks after this disc landed on my desk. But the idea is a fertile one nonetheless. Not only is Dean’s piece as theatrical as its title would suggest, it also has a compelling downwards trajectory right from the ominous, Dohnányi-like bass melody that takes over soon after the concerto has pattered its way into being, rather like Dean’s Viola Concerto does. The first movement, ‘Fall of a Superhero’, maintains a rhythmic groove pretty much throughout its 13‑minute span. Hardenberger’s trumpet moans, whines and cries with uncannily human qualities in the following ‘Soliloquy’ and seems haunted by responsibilities it doesn’t want in the final ‘The Accidental Revolutionary’. Hamlet undertones there, for sure. But just as interesting is how the trumpet – the lonely prince or not – pursues or abandons flawed relationships with dramatis personae from the orchestra. Luca Francesconi’s concerto Hard Pace couldn’t be more different but is just as special, perhaps even more so. The composer himself talks in the booklet about Miles Davis, which rings alarm bells, but it needn’t: his love for Davis delivers the very opposite of musical tokenism but, instead, extreme care with Francesconi’s own sort of poetry, in which the trumpet dare only speak, during some exquisite passages, in isolated notes like faltering lines drawn on a wall. Textures are spare, harmonies are rich, tension is high – not least as the trumpet is pressured into a treacherous ascent at the end of the first movement (the mirror image of Dean’s fallen hero). The piece’s distilled atmosphere and harmonic calligraphy reminds me of Henze’s Requiem, but it might just be that I’ve not heard trumpet-playing like it since Hardenbeger’s recording of that piece. With Storgårds and the GSO, it’s a dream team. Andrew Mellor (8/17) Dusapin String Quartets – No 6, ‘Hinterland’a; No 7, ‘OpenTime’ Arditti Quartet; a Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra Aeon F AECD1753 (57’ • DDD) originally reviewed with: Dusapin ‘Item’ Ifa. Imagob. Immerb. Incisab. Inveceb. Iotab. Ipsoa. Itemb. Lapsc. Ohéc ac Benjamin Dieltjens cl bcArne Deforce vc Aeon F b AECD1756 (102’ • DDD) He may have limited presence in UK concert halls but Pascal Dusapin (b1955) continues to be among the most recorded of contemporary composers. These new Aeon releases focus on chamber music, including a follow-up to the Arditti set of his first five string quartets (9/10). Both the latest instalments were written in 2009, but here similarities end. The Sixth Quartet features orchestra in what is less a concerto concept than an extension of the quartet’s sound world on to a larger expressive canvas, the first movement setting up harmonic and rhythmic premises which its four successors build on in a visceral yet ultimately inconclusive manner, the discourse running down to an uneasy stasis. By contrast, the Seventh Quartet consists of 21 brief movements – each a variation on the motivic fragment heard at the outset – that can be heard as falling into three larger groups whose impetus is channelled towards increasingly stable and cohesive effect, the music reaching a calm which is audibly devoid of exhaustion. Both pieces reaffirm Dusapin’s quartet cycle as among the most significant now emerging. The other release brings together Dusapin’s music for cello and/or clarinet, a substantial body of work which extends across almost two decades of his output. Earlier pieces tend to reflect the influence of those composers (notably Xenakis) who shaped Dusapin’s attitude to timbre and texture, though even here an emphasis on gestural continuity points towards the organic formal designs of his maturity. Such is evident in Laps, where the two instruments unfold a dialogue that takes on greater emotional import as surely as it gains in momentum; qualities no less to the fore in Ipso, where solo clarinet focuses on spiralling arcs of sound that build to a heady culmination. The highlights, though, come with two major works for cello on the second disc. Immer makes inventive play with non-standard tuning in music whose melodic contours evince subtle overtones of folk music. Imago is more overt in its recourse to admittedly ‘false’ popular songs – its three pieces become unexpected and intriguing variations on each other in music that is among this composer’s most engaging and approachable. Both discs enjoy spacious and lifelike sound, notably in the frequently intricate textures of the quartets, with detailed though occasionally abstruse booklet notes (some knowledge of post-war French philosophy and aesthetics would not go amiss). Anyone new to Dusapin’s music might start with the collection of orchestral works from Myung-Whun Chung (DG, 6/14) or the atmospheric and wide-ranging opera Perelà – Uoma di fumo (Naïve, 6/05), but the present discs are no less representative of this composer and as such can be warmly recommended. Richard Whitehouse Pickard Monteverdi Orfeo – Toccata (transcr Pickard) Pickard Symphony No 5. Concertante Variationsa. Sixteen Sunrises a Matthew Featherstone fl aGeoffrey Cox ob a Nicholas Cox cl aJarosław Augustyniak bn a Ian Fisher hn BBC National Orchestra of Wales / Martyn Brabbins BIS F Í BIS2261 (63’ • DDD/DSD) The chief work on BIS’s fourth CD devoted to the music of John Pickard gramophone.co.uk Click on album covers to buy from GRAMOPHONE SHORTLIST 2018 15

Contemporary

GRAMOPHONE AWARDS SHORTLIST 2018

Award sponsored by

Dean . Francesconi Dean Dramatis personae Francesconi Hard Pace Håkan Hardenberger tpt Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra / John Storgårds BIS F Í BIS2067 (59’ • DDD/DSD)

I can’t find any evidence to corroborate the booklet note’s suggestion that Brett Dean’s trumpet concerto Dramatis personae is a preparatory work for the opera Hamlet, which opened two weeks after this disc landed on my desk. But the idea is a fertile one nonetheless. Not only is Dean’s piece as theatrical as its title would suggest, it also has a compelling downwards trajectory right from the ominous, Dohnányi-like bass melody that takes over soon after the concerto has pattered its way into being, rather like Dean’s Viola Concerto does.

The first movement, ‘Fall of a Superhero’, maintains a rhythmic groove pretty much throughout its 13‑minute span. Hardenberger’s trumpet moans, whines and cries with uncannily human qualities in the following ‘Soliloquy’ and seems haunted by responsibilities it doesn’t want in the final ‘The Accidental Revolutionary’. Hamlet undertones there, for sure. But just as interesting is how the trumpet – the lonely prince or not – pursues or abandons flawed relationships with dramatis personae from the orchestra.

Luca Francesconi’s concerto Hard Pace couldn’t be more different but is just as special, perhaps even more so. The composer himself talks in the booklet about Miles Davis, which rings alarm bells, but it needn’t: his love for Davis delivers the very opposite of musical tokenism but, instead, extreme care with Francesconi’s own sort of poetry, in which the trumpet dare only speak, during some exquisite passages, in isolated notes like faltering lines drawn on a wall. Textures are spare, harmonies are rich, tension is high – not least as the trumpet is pressured into a treacherous ascent at the end of the first movement (the mirror image of Dean’s fallen hero). The piece’s distilled atmosphere and harmonic calligraphy reminds me of

Henze’s Requiem, but it might just be that I’ve not heard trumpet-playing like it since Hardenbeger’s recording of that piece. With Storgårds and the GSO, it’s a dream team. Andrew Mellor (8/17)

Dusapin String Quartets – No 6, ‘Hinterland’a; No 7, ‘OpenTime’ Arditti Quartet; a Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra Aeon F AECD1753 (57’ • DDD) originally reviewed with:

Dusapin ‘Item’ Ifa. Imagob. Immerb. Incisab. Inveceb. Iotab. Ipsoa. Itemb. Lapsc. Ohéc ac Benjamin Dieltjens cl bcArne Deforce vc Aeon F b AECD1756 (102’ • DDD)

He may have limited presence in UK concert halls but Pascal Dusapin (b1955) continues to be among the most recorded of contemporary composers. These new Aeon releases focus on chamber music, including a follow-up to the Arditti set of his first five string quartets (9/10).

Both the latest instalments were written in 2009, but here similarities end. The Sixth Quartet features orchestra in what is less a concerto concept than an extension of the quartet’s sound world on to a larger expressive canvas, the first movement setting up harmonic and rhythmic premises which its four successors build on in a visceral yet ultimately inconclusive manner, the discourse running down to an uneasy stasis. By contrast, the Seventh Quartet consists of 21 brief movements – each a variation on the motivic fragment heard at the outset – that can be heard as falling into three larger groups whose impetus is channelled towards increasingly stable and cohesive effect, the music reaching a calm which is audibly devoid of exhaustion. Both pieces reaffirm Dusapin’s quartet cycle as among the most significant now emerging.

The other release brings together Dusapin’s music for cello and/or clarinet,

a substantial body of work which extends across almost two decades of his output. Earlier pieces tend to reflect the influence of those composers (notably Xenakis) who shaped Dusapin’s attitude to timbre and texture, though even here an emphasis on gestural continuity points towards the organic formal designs of his maturity. Such is evident in Laps, where the two instruments unfold a dialogue that takes on greater emotional import as surely as it gains in momentum; qualities no less to the fore in Ipso, where solo clarinet focuses on spiralling arcs of sound that build to a heady culmination. The highlights, though, come with two major works for cello on the second disc. Immer makes inventive play with non-standard tuning in music whose melodic contours evince subtle overtones of folk music. Imago is more overt in its recourse to admittedly ‘false’ popular songs – its three pieces become unexpected and intriguing variations on each other in music that is among this composer’s most engaging and approachable.

Both discs enjoy spacious and lifelike sound, notably in the frequently intricate textures of the quartets, with detailed though occasionally abstruse booklet notes (some knowledge of post-war French philosophy and aesthetics would not go amiss). Anyone new to Dusapin’s music might start with the collection of orchestral works from Myung-Whun Chung (DG, 6/14) or the atmospheric and wide-ranging opera Perelà – Uoma di fumo (Naïve, 6/05), but the present discs are no less representative of this composer and as such can be warmly recommended. Richard Whitehouse

Pickard Monteverdi Orfeo – Toccata (transcr Pickard) Pickard Symphony No 5. Concertante Variationsa. Sixteen Sunrises a Matthew Featherstone fl aGeoffrey Cox ob a Nicholas Cox cl aJarosław Augustyniak bn a Ian Fisher hn BBC National Orchestra of Wales / Martyn Brabbins BIS F Í BIS2261 (63’ • DDD/DSD)

The chief work on BIS’s fourth CD devoted to the music of John Pickard gramophone.co.uk

Click on album covers to buy from

GRAMOPHONE SHORTLIST 2018 15

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