Latest releases reviewed
YORITSUNE MATSUDAIRA: BUNGAKU DANCE SUITE; THEME AND VARIATIONS FOR PIANO AND ORCHESTRA
Ichiro Nodaira (piano), Osaka Century Orchestra/Ken Takaseki
Naxos 8.555882
****
Yoritsune Matsudaira (1907-2001) was a major presence in Japanese musical life for over half a century. His first influences were French and neo-classical, and his fascination with Gagaku, the music of the Imperial Court, ultimately led him to combine its sounds and patterns with the techniques of the post-war avant garde. The Theme and Variations of 1951, (where 12-tone technique makes an early appearance, and jazz comes into the picture, too), was taken up by Karajan. The other works here, Danza Rituale e Finale (Enbou) (1959), Sa-Mai (1958) and U-Mai (1957), have been organised into a suite which would fit the traditional Bugaku dance of the Imperial Court. Matsudaira's music has a detached, refined rigour which commands attention. www.naxos.com
KREMERLAND
Kremerata Baltica/Gidon Kremer (violin)
474 8012
***
Gidon Kremer has long shown an affection for the wilder end of contemporary composition. Kremerland, his new collection of work by composers from the former Soviet Union, even includes a piece - Alexander Bakshi's The Unanswered Call - in which the mobile phones ring on the stage rather than in the audience. It's one of the disc's shorter, encore-style works, all delivered in style by the excellent Kremerata Baltica. George Pelecis mixes perkiness with a nostalgia for past musical styles in Meeting with a Friend. Alexander Vustin's Tango hommage à Gidon is abstract modernist. Circus, arranged from Isaak Dunayevsky's film music by Sergei Dreznin, is purely comic. Giya Kancheli's Rag-Gidon-Time is all evocative, wispy haze. On a larger scale, Dreznin's arrangement for solo violin and strings of Liszt's Dante Sonata doesn't quite hang together as successfully as the piano original, and Leonid Chizhik's Fantasy Variations on a Theme by Mozart meander through a range of jazz styles. www.dgclassics.com
SCHUMANN: FANTASIESTÜCKE OP 12; KINDERSZENEN; HUMORESKE
Philippe Cassard (piano) Ambroisie
AMB 9961
*****
Philippe Cassard plays these three early works of Schumann with an authority which is commanding but unforced. His responses to the music's shifts of mood - the energetic flights of fancy, the self-communing, ardent songfulness - sound as natural as if he were a resurrected confidante of the composer's. His pacing, the natural fluidity of his rubato, the depth of affection he communicates and the persuasive ardency of his argument, not to mention the amber-like richness of his tone, bring to mind the music-making of an older generation of pianists. The Fantasiestücke and Kinderszenen are well-known, but he is every bit as successful in the strangely stirring but altogether too rarely-played Humoreske. www.harmoniamundi.com
BEETHOVEN: SYMPHONIES 1-9; 7 OVERTURES; CREATURES OF PROMETHEUS
Cleveland Orchestra/George Szell, Louis Lane Sony Classics Original Jacket Collection
SX10K92480 (10 CDs)
***
The Cleveland Orchestra in the years of these Beethoven recordings (1957-1967) was a band with hair-trigger musical responses and high-gloss technique, drilled to perfection by George Szell. His interpretative approach was after the manner of Toscanini, thrilling in its fire and occasional ferocity, though more flexible in the pressure of its musical argument. The fly in the ointment, and there is one, is the quality of the recordings, often very close and with a tendency to overload into distortion. The current nostalgic packaging (miniature cardboard sleeves carrying original LP artwork front and back) observes most of the original couplings, which explains the need for 10 discs - all nine symphonies plus two of the overtures were previously fitted on five CDs. The Creatures of Prometheus is the only work conducted by Louis Lane.
www.sonyclassical.co.uk
