Latest releases reviewed

SCHUBERT/KISSINE: STRING QUARTET IN G D887
Kremerata Baltica ECM New Series ECM 1883
****

Like the famous Death and the Maiden Quartet, Schubert's final, G major Quartet seems to want to burst the restraints of the quartet medium. Mahler and others have facilitated Death and the Maiden, and now Victor Kissine has done the same for the G major Quartet. There's nothing half-hearted about Kremerata Baltica's treatment of Kissine's arrangement. The high-contrast inflation of the original is threefold, in the orchestration (which makes much use of solo lines), the performance (strong on attitude, especially in Gidon Kremer's solos), and the exaggerated sonorities of the larger-than-life recording. In short, the new manifestation takes the original out of itself with surprising success, though I did find myself tripped up by the way Kremer's jerky rubato tugged on the reins in the finale. www.ecmrecords.com
Michael Dervan

BEETHOVEN: DIABELLI VARIATIONS
Edmund Battersby (piano, fortepiano) Naxos 8.557384-85 (2 CDs)
***

It's an interesting idea, though not a new one, to present the same artist and repertoire on modern and early pianos. Paul Badura-Skoda anticipated US pianist Edmund Battersby, in Mozart rather than Beethoven, by over half a century. Battersby is a rather earnest-sounding performer who doesn't always pick up on the fantasy and wit of Beethoven's imagination, leaving him to sound rather earthbound at key moments. However, his 1997 RJ Regier copy of a Graf piano of 1825 is a fine-sounding instrument, and the balance between its treble and bass registers allows for a clarity under pressure which can be far more problematic to achieve on modern pianos. It's been well recorded, too. Naxos itself has just released Artur Schnabel's far more musically insightful vintage (1937) performance of this great work. But the inquisitive listener will find rewards in this unusual double version. www.naxos.com
Michael Dervan

DECCA BEETHOVEN RECORDINGS 1950-1958
Friedrich Gulda (piano), Ruggiero Ricci (violin), Vienna Philharmonic/Karl Böhm Decca Original Masters 475 6835 (11 CDs)
****

It's been said of Friedrich Gulda that he was too perfect, that playing the piano came too easily to him. He won the 1946 Geneva Competition at 16, and, branded as the new flag-carrier of Viennese tradition, gave his first complete Beethoven sonata cycle aged 23. He turned to jazz, spurned the values of the musical establishment, and acquired a not unwarranted reputation as an eccentric. These Decca recordings - the complete solo sonatas, the Eroica Variations, two violin sonatas with Ruggiero Ricci, the First Concerto with Karl Böhm - have a combination of musical poise, pianistic mastery and interpretative neutrality which epitomise the pursuit of objectivity that went hand in hand with the rapidly rising ideal of the Urtext in the 1950s. Yet you'll also find in them both a tenderness which inclines to melancholy and a refined brilliance which are quite personal. www.deccaclassics.com
Michael Dervan

WAGNER: PRELUDES; SIEGFRIED IDYLL; BRUCKNER: SYMPHONY NO 3
Jane Eaglen (soprano), London Classical Players/Roger Norrington Virgin Veritas 2482 0912 (2 CDs)
***

The period performance approach to late 19th-century music is still a relative rarity, so the reissue of these mid-1990s Wagner and Bruckner recordings at Naxos-level prices is more than welcome. The period instruments generally lighten and brighten the tone, and Roger Norrington ditches some of the emotional baggage that the music has acquired over the years, both through his choice of speeds and a certain matter-of-factness in delivery. The Wagner is more successful than the Bruckner -he takes the first movement of the Third Symphony (in the earliest, 1873, version) at the kind of lick that's guaranteed to cause controversy. www.virginclassics.com
Michael Dervan

OPERA

HANDEL: SERSE

Soloists: Anne Sophie von Otter, Elizabeth Norberg-Schulz, Sandrine Piau, Lawrence Zazzo; Les Arts Florissants Chorus & Orchestra. Conductor: William Christie Virgin Classics

Serse, premiered in 1738, was Handel's last opera composed for the King's Theatre in London. Its opening aria, Ombra mai fu (commonly but erroneously known as Handel's Largo) is one of his most loved, and the rest of the opera has considerably greater dramatic and emotional content than the usual opera seria of the time. This is probably the reason for its popularity in modern times relative to other contemporary compositions, and this performance by LesArts Florissants brings out the dramatic strength of the work, born out by the occasional audience laughter during this live performance (at the Theatre des Champs Elysees, Paris, in November 2003). While the main singers, Von Otter and Norberg-Schulz, are variable, the secondary roles are very well sung. All in all, a gripping performance of a fine work. www.virginclassics.com

Colman Morrissey

CD reviews compiled by

Tony Clayton-Lea