Beethoven - Piano Concertos No 1 in C and No 3 in C minor In these performances, recorded live at Festival Hall in 1967, the great Russian pianist Emil Gilels disappoints me only by choosing to play the shorter of the composer’s two cadenzas to the first movement of the C major concerto, not the longer, which is one of Beethoven’s great jokes, a huge tease of his audience. Does this mean Gilels underrates the humour of the work? Maybe; but his playing is so vivid, so lyrical, so natural in its mastery, I can’t imagine it, or the C minor, done better. Every run and trill and arpeggio makes beautiful, effortless music. Once past a slightly tentative start to No 1, Boult and the New Philharmonia are crisp, warm-hearted accompanists. These are performances to relish. DC
Richard Strauss - Der Rosenkavalier Cast Montserrat Caballé’s Marschallin — never recorded commercially — is presumably Glyndebourne’s main reason for releasing this fine 1965 account of Strauss’s popular comedy. She did not know the role when she arrived for rehearsals, so this recording is a testament not only to the company’s knack of spotting future superstars, but to its standards of preparation. Caballé was coached “practically day and night” to achieve a beautifully sung, youthful incarnation of a difficult role in good German. Surprisingly, she isn’t the star: that accolade goes to Teresa Zylis-Gara’s gloriously sung Octavian. And Pritchard’s brilliant conducting, never too slow, always transparent, makes this version greater than the sum of its considerable parts. HC
Gavin Bryars - Three works Bryars’s craftsmanship is undeniable, the sources imaginatively chosen and cleverly manipulated, the integrity absolute, but his music is too full of predictable sequences and naggingly obsessive oscillations. These three works fascinate even if they do not involve. The Piano Concerto evokes something not far removed from Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony, only less storm-tossed. While delicate colouristic effects abound, it is a work of unhurried, dreaming whimsy. Van Raat is a passionate, skilled advocate. SP
Luciano Berio - Sequenzas III & VII and other works This charming disc, a reissue of a 1970 LP, comprises five of Berio’s influential early works. The first, Différences, for flute, clarinet, harp, viola, cello and tape, is a pioneering electroacoustic piece. Live music is confronted none too subtly with variants of itself on tape; the wonky, echoey electronic sounds have a sort of period flavour, and the spikily dissonant, harp-dominated instrumental writing has an invigorating lemon flavour. The soprano Cathy Berberian is the vocal prestidigitator in Sequenza III, written for her, and more conventionally eloquent in the crystal-clear Joyce settings of Chamber Music, with clarinet, cello and harp. The oboist Heinz Holliger and an electronic drone perform Sequenza VII. PD