John Buckley: Organ Concerto; Symphony No 1. Peter Sweeney, NSO/Colman Pearce (Marco Polo)
Fanfares, frenetic flurries of strings, drums whipping up storms, high percussion in prolonged states of glitter, biting or growling eruptions from the lower brass, alarums and excursions, are among the favoured gestures of the two orchestral works by John Buckley on this new CD. At the other extreme, there's a meditative stasis of melancholy melodic lines, sometimes singly, sometimes in profusion, often weaving patterns that double back on themselves. And in between there's a sort of bustling activity that creates islands of Lutoslawskian stasis. The exuberant start of the Organ Concerto, with its choppy energy and riotous colouring, offers a good foretaste of a disc of music that's at once both sophisticated and naive.
Michael Dervan
Igor Markevitch conducts Cherubini and Mozart (DG Originals)
The Italian Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842) dominated French musical life for half a century. He was highly admired by his fellow composers (including Beethoven), but the modern repertoire no longer reflects either his status among his contemporaries or his actual achievement. The Requiem in D minor for male chorus and orchestra was written at the age of 76, and remains a work of arresting gravitas. No one hearing it for the first time could doubt its mastery or originality. Markevitch, conducting the Czech Philharmonic and Chorus in 1962, fully reveals its long-arched grandeur. His approach is one of unusual solemnity, too, in Mozart's Coronation Mass, where, with the Lamoureux Orchestra in 1959, Maria Stader and Ernst Haefliger shone among the soloists.
Michael Dervan
Stanford: Music for violin and piano. Paul Barritt (violin), Catherine Edwards (piano) (Hyperion)
Stanford's Second Violin Sonata of 1898 would certainly seem to have been full of inspired ideas to anyone who didn't already know the three violin sonatas by Brahms. This is not to suggest that Stanford was cribbing, but rather his absorption with the spirit of Brahms, especially in the first movement, filtered through into details a little too specific for comfort. The Dubliner's First Sonata was written 21 years earlier, when he was a 25-year-old, freshly returned to college in Cambridge after study in Germany. It's both Brahms-free and more apt to strive after effect. The disc, with sensitive performances from Barritt and Edwards which studiously avoid distorting the scale of the music, also includes a Caoine and the set of five pieces Op 93.
Michael Dervan
