International Tchaikovsky Competition Vol 1 (Melodiya) Non-Russians did well at the early Tchaikovsky competitions in Moscow. This disc documents the work of the two pianists - Vladimir Ashkenazy and John Ogdon - who tied for first place in 1962. Though from that year, the recordings are not actually from the competition itself. Ashkenazy thunders and whirls octaves to match the best in the Tchaikovsky Concerto (a piece not to his taste; "all that bravura, which I actually detest") and is commanding in the same composer's Dumka. It is, however, Ogdon whose reputation is really going to be enhanced by this new issue. He sounds not so much untrammeled as untrammelable in an electrifying account of Liszt's First Concerto, and his Mephisto Waltz is demonically wild.
Respighi: Piano Music. Konstantin Scherbakov (Naxos). International Casella: Piano Music. Sandro Ivo Bartoli (ASV) Respighi is the better-known of these two early 20thcentury Italian composers, but it's Alfredo Casella (18831947) who shows greater vitality in his approach to the piano. The predominantly calm surfaces of Respighi's Three Preludes On Gregorian Melodies impress more than the arrangement of movements from his Ancient Airs And Dances or the florid padding of the teenage Sonata in F minor. None of these, however, approach in quality the pianistic exuberance of Casella's early Toccata, the moodily chromatic excursions of the 21-minute nocturne, A notte alta, the harsh, war realities of the four "films" for piano duet Pagine di guerra, the more familiar tangy neoclassicism of the brief but pointed Children's Pieces, or the two knottier Ricercari sul nome BACH.
Rathaus: Symphony No 1; Der letzte Pierrot. Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin/Israel Yinon (Decca Entartete Musik)
Polish-born Karol Rathaus (1895-1954) read the signs correctly and fled Germany for Paris in 1932, living for a while in London and Hollywood before settling in New York, as Professor of Music at Queens College. He achieved prominence early. His first two symphonies excited polar responses as radical works, his film music was highly praised, and his ballet, Der letzte Pier- rot was widely performed. The public success did not last, and the current recording of the orchestrally lavish, anonymously dissonant First Symphony of 1922 marked its first airing since its premiere. The 1926 Pierrot ballet - commedia dell'arte figures in a 20thcentury industrial setting - is altogether lighter in texture, more sharply characterised, with a flirtation with jazz that was fashionable at the time.
