Latest releases reviewed
MENDELSSOHN: STRING QUARTETS; OCTET
Emerson Quartet Deutsche Grammophon 477 5370 (3 CDs plus bonus disc with video documentary)
****
Yep. The listing of the Octet on a set with just a single four-man ensemble playing is no mistake. The Emersons double track with themselves, adding variety to the blend by using eight different instruments. The result is a performance of the sheerest delight, meticulously crafted, impeccable in ensemble, and imbued with irresistible joie de vivre. The string quartets are on a lower level, partly because Mendelssohn never matched the peak he achieved as a 16 year old with the Octet, partly because the synthetic luxuriance of the close recording and the strong projection of the playing can create a effect of musical clutter. The playing is astonishingly well-turned, the keenness of observation in each line unquestionable. But there are times when musicians and engineer alike seem too concerned to squeeze everything into a perspective-shy foreground. www.dgclassics.com
Michael Dervan
MOZART: PIANO CONCERTO IN D K451; VIOLIN SONATA IN G K379; MOZART/WILBY: CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO K315F
Daniel Hope (violin), Sebastian Knauer (piano), Camerata Salzburg/Roger Norrington Warner Classics 2564 61944-2
****
The big attraction here is the performance of the Piano Concerto in D, K451. Roger Norrington and his players convey the forceful expression of the opening without sounding weightily grounded. Sebastian Knauer's solos are unusually flighty and light-fingered, with something of the effortless grace of a darting bird. Knauer manages to give such an impression of spontaneity that he never seems to cover the same ground twice. His playing is thicker in tone and texture and a lot more conventional in manner in the Violin Sonata with Daniel Hope. But the lightness of touch returns for this disc's rarity: Philip Wilby's completion of the rich, 120-bar torso Mozart left of the first movement of a Concerto for Piano and Violin in 1778. Wilby has added orchestrations of the slow movement and finale from the Violin Sonata, K306, to create a complete work that all enquiring musical minds will want to hear. www.warnerclassics.com
Michael Dervan
BARTÓK: MIRACULOUS MANDARIN; DANCE SUITE; HUNGARIAN PICTURES
Bournemouth Symphony Chorus and Orchestra/Marin Alsop Naxos 8.557433
***
Marin Alsop offers vivid, breezily sharp-edged performances of some of Bartók's most sharply edged music. The breeziness is not entirely apt in the sordid pantomime, The Miraculous Mandarin, where the approach can seem picturesquely distanced from both the nastiness and seductiveness of this expressionist music. The performances of the Dance Suite and the Hungarian Pictures will also appeal most to listeners who want a Bartók with a lighter touch, ready, as it were, to welcome a consistently brightened outlook from an unexpected quarter. www.naxos.com
Michael Dervan
HANDEL: 16 KEYBOARD SUITES; BEETHOVEN: SONATA IN D MINOR OP 31 NO 2 (TEMPEST)
Sviatoslav Richter (piano), Andrei Gavrilov (piano) EMI Classics Gemini 586 5402 (Suites 1-8, 2 CDs); 586 5432 (Suites 9-16; Beethoven; 2 CDs)
*****
It was quite an occasion at the Tours festival of 1979 when the 23-year-old Andrei Gavrilov and the 64-year-old Sviatoslav Richter shared the honours at Château de Marcilly-sur-Maulne in a performance of 16 keyboard suites by Handel. If you only know the wild Gavrilov of recent years, you may be surprised by the restraint and gentleness of his approach - he's at his best in the meditative handling of slow movements. Richter treats the music with a combination of rigour and reverence to convey the contrapuntal writing with a chiselled grandeur. The performances are elevating, and the dryish live recordings, not without occasional audience intrusions, are very truthful in timbre and perspective. Richter takes Suites 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 12, 14 and 16, and his celebrated 1961studio recording of Beethoven's Tempest Sonata is a bonus on the second of these bargain-priced sets. emiclassics.com
Michael Dervan
