ALBUM OF THE WEEK
SIBELIUS, NIELSEN
Violin Concertos and others
Baiba Skride, Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, cond Santtu-Matias Rouvali
Orfeo C896152A
Born in the same year, 1865 — their 150th birthdays are widely celebrated this year — Finland’s and Denmark’s greatest composers wrote their violin concertos in 1903 and 1911 respectively, although Sibelius revised his masterpiece after initial bafflement among his critics. In doing so, he created one of the 20th century’s outstanding works for violin and orchestra, now a staple for the world’s leading soloists. Nielsen’s concerto has taken longer to find favour, but its more extrovert style seems to be catching on with younger players. The Latvian Baiba Skride proves a persuasive advocate of both. Benefiting from the expansive orchestral playing of the Tampere PO and their young conductor — who clearly have Sibelius in their blood — she soars through the difficulties of the solo part with effortless virtuosity and intensity. Less technically demanding, the more extrovert Nielsen concerto gets a winning performance, especially in the cantering allegro cavalleresco and the dancing allegretto scherzando rondo finale. Sibelius’s beautiful short Serenades are ideal fillers for the concerto. HC
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RAVEL
L’Enfant et les Sortilèges; Shéhérazade
Isobel Leonard, Susan Graham (mezzos), Saito Kinen Orchestra, cond Seiji Ozawa
Decca 4786760
It’s unfortunate that I listened to Ozawa’s L’Enfant days after attending the magical revival with Danielle de Niese and mostly French singers at Glyndebourne. The recorded version is of the same production by Laurent Pelly: Yvonne Naef’s Maman and Leonard’s petulant Child are among the successes here, but Ozawa’s conducting is heavy-handed and brash. He calms down for Graham’s Shéhérazade, even more ravishing than her 2005 BBCSO version. HC
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BACH
Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord
Lucy Russell, John Butt Linn
CKD433 (2 CDs)
Even within Bach’s vast canon, nothing surpasses the six violin and keyboard sonatas for inventiveness and eloquence, and in these period-style performances, Russell and Butt prove impressive exponents. Russell’s beautifully polished playing reveals an affecting relish for the music’s searching expressivity, while Butt offers shapely, crisply articulated contributions in his dual role as provider of impetus-giving continuo and — because these are essentially trio sonatas — as second melodist. SP
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LEO ORNSTEIN
Piano Quintet, String Quartet No 2
Marc-André Hamelin, Pacifica Quartet
Hyperion CDA68084
The American composer lived even longer than Elliott Carter, who esteemed him. Dying in 2002 aged 108, he had described a curious career path. Beginning as a futurist of extreme raucousness — among the first to use tone clusters — he retrenched in the 1920s into the late Romanticism with a bit of a bang of the works recorded here. Then came decades of obscurity, before his rediscovery as an old-age prodigy (having been a child one). The three-movement Piano Quintet and String Quartet No 2 are weighty, spirited utterances in a style hard to seize as Ornsteinian, but worth attention, especially when performed with such panache. PD
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ROSE CONSORT OF VIOLS
Mynstrelles with Straunge Sounds
Clare Wilkinson (mezzo)
Delphian DCD34169
Much in the Rose’s pan-European recital of viol consorts and consort songs will already be familiar to Renaissance devotees, not least the chansons De tous biens plaine and Fortunata desperata, each given in three versions. But the disc is no less attractive for that. Wilkinson delivers the sung numbers with deliciously understated refinement; the viols play with alluring sophistication. SP
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