AVguide.com: Film/Music Recommendations: Classical Capsules Film/Music Recommendations
 

  Handel: Rinaldo. Vivica Genaux (Rinaldo), Inga Kalna (Armida), Miah Persson (Almirena). Freiburger Baroque Orchestra, René Jacobs, conductor. Martin Sauer, producer; René Möller, engineer. Harmonia Mundi 901796.98 (3 CDs)

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  Handel: Aci, Galatea e Polifemo. Sandrine Piau (Aci), Sara Mingardo (Galatea), Laurent Naouri (Polifemo). Le Concert d’Astrée, Emmanuelle Haïm, conductor. Daniel Zalay, producer; Jean Chatauret, engineer. Virgin 45557 (2 CDs)

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  The rediscovery of Handel’s Italian operas is among the great legacies of the Baroque revival. Their glories are easily heard in this new pair of releases revealing the genius of a composer still in his green twenties.
      Rinaldo is a prime example. A “magic” opera full of special effects (the premiere featured sparrows released over the heads of the audience), it’s a complex tale of love set during the Crusaders’s siege of Jerusalem. All the ingredients of stirring spectacle are here: Christians and Muslims (including sorcerers of both persuasions pitted against each other), brave warriors, a captive princess, and much more. Handel’s music bursts with life, especially in this vividly performed version by René Jacobs and a faultless cast.
      Jacobs pulls out all the stops—widely varied tempos and dynamics, fierce attacks, free embellishments, vibrant percussion, and over-the-top sound effects. It’s invidious to single out individuals other than the leads, but even those put off by countertenors should enjoy Lawrence Zazzo’s full-voiced Goffredo. Leading the cast is the vivacious Vivica Genaux, a mezzo singing the castrato role of Rinaldo in a voice full of color and expression, with truckloads of personality and exciting high notes. Miah Persson is an excellent Almirena, Rinaldo’s love interest. Though Persson is superior to the aggressive Cecilia Bartoli in the Hogwood set, it is Inga Kalna as Armida who almost steals the show. As the Muslim sorceress, she tears into her opening “Furie terribili” and flaunts dazzling coloratura fireworks in her big scene at the end of Act II. A great recording of a great opera.
      Written a few years earlier, in 1708, Aci, Galatea e Polifemo is a cantata for three voices—really a chamber opera, not to be confused with Handel’s later masque on the same subject, the English Acis and Galatea. Both are based on the myth from Ovid’s Metamorphoses depicting the ill-fated lovers and the jealous giant Polifemo, whose unrequited love for Galatea triggers tragedy.
      Again, terrific singing and lively conducting make this rarity must listening for Handelians. Polifemo requires a bass with an incredibly wide range; here he’s sung by baritone Laurent Naouri, who ranges from treble A to a convincing low D while fully encompassing the complex feelings raging within the giant. Sandrine Piau is a wonderful Aci; her high-flying lyric soprano eloquently depicts the brave but doomed lover. The Galatea, Sara Mingardo, is the star of the show, her rich alto packed with power and emotion. Emmanuelle Haïm conducts the crack period-instrument group with spot-on pacing and keeps the drama moving. Sonics (except for some awkward internal balances) are fine, but Harmonia Mundi’s sound for Rinaldo is outstanding—all those colorful sound effects (e.g., wind machine) and bird chirps register; the percussion has bite and excitement; and the voices are true.
Dan Davis
   
  Sibelius: Rondo of the Waves. Fragments from a Suite. The Oceanides. Seven Early Works. Lahti Symphony, Osmo Vänskä, conductor. Robert Suff, producer; Ingo Petry, engineer. BIS 1445

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  This compilation of orchestral rarities—all but the famous Oceanides in recorded premieres—vividly illustrates the evolution of Sibelius the practical musician fluently turning out serviceable occasional pieces into Sibelius the uncompromising, austere, hyper-critical perfectionist who finally succumbed to self-imposed silence when he felt he could no longer live up to his own exalted standards. Cassation, Music for a Scene, Coronation March, Romantic Piece, March of the Pori Regiment, Cortège, and the gorgeous Spring Song are all distinctly minor albeit skillful and enjoyable efforts from around the turn of the century. Part of their interest, in addition to unfailing melodic appeal, is in how they mix familiar Sibelian trademarks with uncharacteristic ideas that the more mature composer would jettison from his musical arsenal. Touches of Tchaikovsky, Dvorák, Bizet, Chabrier, the Johann Strausses, and others flit casually by as if returning from a pleasantly inebriated fin de siècle dinner party.
      But by 1914 Sibelius had long achieved his own, utterly individual voice. The struggle now was to create only masterpieces in that voice, with the result that the composer experimented with two preliminary versions of the sea-inspired tone poem that was to become The Oceanides. These fascinating test runs are entitled Fragments from a Suite and Rondo of the Waves. Both are shorter and less developed than the exquisite final version, the Rondo more impressionist and prismatic, as if Sibelius had to re-calibrate his response to Debussy in tackling this subject. The Oceanides that we’ve come to know and love—Sibelius’s greatest tone poem until the valedictory and ineffably elusive Tapiola—is more lucid, more shapely, more dramatic (with the billowy “storm” music moved back, to become a climactic culmination). Like all of Sibelius’s best music, it seems somehow more discovered than written. In short, the composer expanded and tinkered and reordered and refined until he had a far better composition. But that, my friends, is what makes a genius: he keeps on working when others would have been satisfied with less.
      Osmo Vänskä and the Lahti Symphony play Sibelius like they own him—which, considering this is the fifty-first volume of BIS’s ongoing complete recorded Sibelius edition—they pretty nearly do. The recording takes full advantage of the clear, warm, spacious acoustics of the Lahti Sibelius Hall. It’s airy, immediate, detailed, dynamic, and tonally resplendent—ideal for this Nordic master’s sensuous, majestic, and meltingly lovely paean to the water nymphs of ancient Greece.
Mark Lehman
   
  Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet. Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor. Andrew Cornall, producer; Colin Moorfoot, Michael Mailes, engineers. Decca B0000226
  Prokofiev: The Stone Flower. BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Gianandrea Noseda, conductor. Mike George, producer; Stephen Rinker, engineer. Chandos 10058

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  Prokofiev was not really a great composer of symphonies. His talents as a melo-dist and orchestrator with a uniquely original style and penchant for short dances are better suited for ballet. He has actually been called a suite writer, as opposed to Shostakovich, the symphonist. Romeo and Juliet is probably Prokofiev’s greatest score. It is a long way from the former enfant terrible’s Scythian Suite, but the grand symphonic scope and seemingly endless melody punctuated by dazzling orchestration and gentle dissonances make it the natural modern successor to the great Tchaikovsky ballets. Lorin Maazel’s brilliantly engineered version with the Cleveland Orchestra (Decca) provides the ideal combination of drama, rhythmic precision, and lyrical beauty. Andre Previn (EMI) and Dmitri Kitajenko (Chandos) emphasize the romantic elements at the cost of losing much of the excitement and dynamic contrast inherent in the music. Prokofiev extracted three orchestral suites, and many others of varying length have been recorded. Riccardo Muti’s (EMI) flamboyantly performed and garishly recorded version of music from Prokofiev’s first two suites presents a dazzling display of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s virtuosity, but Michael Tilson Thomas (RCA) has arranged the best collection of excerpts. His lengthy suite concentrates more on the plot and still makes an effective concert piece. MTT plays it lean, light, and generally fast, and the sound is excellent.
      Vladimir Ashkenazy established his credentials as an interpreter of Prokofiev’s ballets with a translucently engineered digital recording of Cinderella, also with the Cleveland Orchestra (Decca). His approach to Romeo and Juliet is generally similar to Maazel’s, and preferable to Previn and Kitajenko. However, neither he nor the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra can match Maazel and the flawless execution of the Cleveland Orchestra in performance or sound. Ashkenazy’s rhythms are marginally more flaccid; the hairpin dynamics are missing; and, surprisingly, he tends to rush the love music at the end of Act I. Decca’s sound is more opaque, glassy, and just plain digital. It lacks the analog bloom and sharp transients clearly evident even on the digital remastering of Maazel’s analog original. Ashkenazy is solid, but Maazel is special.
      The Stone Flower will not be mistaken for Romeo and Juliet. The silly plot is a far cry from Shakespeare; the melodic content and even much of the orchestration are feeble when compared to Prokofiev’s masterpiece. Nevertheless, it has its moments. The striking orchestral coloring (brass and winds) for the theme of the Mistress of the Copper Mountain contrasting with Danilo’s simple melody combine to make an outstanding prologue. “Severyan’s Death” concluding Act 3 generates a level of power reminiscent of prime Prokofiev. There are a few other interesting new dances mixed with material lifted from previous works, but not enough to justify repeated hearings of the complete ballet.
      Gianandrea Noseda is presently Principal Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic. He was presumably exposed to Russian ballet during a previous stint as Principal Guest Conductor at the Mariinsky Theatre. The sound is big and bold in the usual Chandos manner, with huge instrumental images within a hyper-reverberant soundstage. Noseda and the engineer do all they can for a painfully long score that only rarely approaches the level of Romeo and Juliet.
Arthur B. Lintgen
   
  Eighth Blackbird: Thirteen Ways. Judith Sherman, producer and engineer. Cedille Records 90000 067

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  The six young musicians of Eighth Blackbird—flute, clarinet, violin/viola, cello, piano, and percussion —started playing together as undergraduates at Oberlin in the mid-1990s. They’ve since won a number of prestigious awards, have toured extensively, and are currently ensemble-in-residence at two Chicago universities. On the evidence of Thirteen Ways, its first commercial recording, Eighth Blackbird may be the most vital and accomplished chamber group committed to contemporary music to emerge since Peter Serkin’s Tashi more than a quarter century ago.
      The sextet offers four works by Americans of three generations. The elder statesman here is George Perle (b. 1915), who wrote Critical Moments 2 for Eighth Blackbird in 2001: nine brief and finely limned movements that fully exploit the expressive and coloristic possibilities of this particular instrumental combination. Perle still works in the rigorous academic style in vogue 50 years ago, but don’t be put off—the piece rewards close attention and repeated hearings. The other well-known composer represented is Joan Tower (b. 1938) whose 1980 Petroushskates was arranged for Eighth Blackbird by Allen Otte. This six-minute piece successfully combines, believe it or not, Tower’s love of both Stravinsky and figure skating—“a sort of musical carnival on ice,” according to the composer. David Schober’s (b. 1974) Variations is dramatically charged, employing an advanced musical syntax including some of Olivier Messiaen’s “modes of limited transposition.” (I don’t think I’ve ever before encountered another composer who actually utilized the late Frenchman’s ingenious harmonic system.) Variations is a highly absorbing work for which no program is provided—or required.
      The disc concludes with the half-hour-long Thirteen Ways by Thomas Albert (b. 1948), based on Wallace Stevens’s set of poems Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (from which the group takes its name). Albert creates 13 aphoristic movements, each preceded by Stevens’s verse that is recited by the six artists. The imagery is striking in its clarity yet laden with meaning, and the music is quite evocative. The style ranges from John Adams-like minimalism to tender tonal lyricism; compositional materials include the Fibonacci series of numbers and (very subtly) the accompaniment to The Beatles’s “Blackbird.” But none of these factors register as you attend to this compelling and very beautiful music.
      The six players are all young masters of their instruments. The sound is detailed and uncolored, with the piano properly scaled and positioned behind the other musicians. Percussion has immediacy and loads of character. Urgently recommended.
Andrew Quint
   
  Chopin: Piano works. Ivan Moravec, piano. Todd Landor, producer; Tim Martyn, engineer. Vox 7908
  Mozart: Piano Sonatas, Fantasy in D minor. Alfred Brendel, piano. Martha de Francisco, producer; Jean-Marie Geijsen, engineer. Philips 473689

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  Schubert: Three Piano Sonatas. Murray Perahia, piano. Andreas Neubrenner, producer; Christian Starke, engineer. Sony 87706
  Now in his early 70s, Ivan Moravec, treasured by audiophiles and piano buffs alike for his famous Connoisseur Society LPs that wedded great sound to legendary performances, is back in the recording studio. Recorded in vibrant sonics, Moravec’s new all-Chopin recital is not to be missed. He illustrates his mastery of the elusive art of rubato, displaying wondrous keyboard touch and control along with infinite degrees of shading and dynamics.
      His interpretations are like no one else’s but remain faithful to the music’s spirit and letter, making that old warhorse, Chopin’s B flat minor Sonata, sound fresh, even its “Funeral March” movement. There, he never wallows in sentiment, giving the quiet, almost hesitant, middle section’s frail beauties an emotional wallop by flanking it with a spare, measured tread in the march. The Fourth Ballade is marginally more cogent than his 1963 version; the Berceuse sparkles; a trio of Mazurkas is full of life. Best is the great F minor Fantasie, which can seem episodic but here is as tightly knit as a “fantasy” can be. It’s played with the magisterial command, dramatic power, and weight befitting perhaps the greatest of all Chopin’s works.
      Another choice release by a veteran pianist is Alfred Brendel’s new Mozart disc. At 72, he’s embarked on a new, more exalted career stage, his probing interpretations now enhanced by a greater communicativeness that pays special dividends in Mozart, whose deceptive simplicity cloaks deeper currents. In concert and on discs, his tone is now rounder, his poetic impulses more fully developed, his tendency to didactic interruptions of the musical flow virtually banished.
      This is apparent in the D minor Fantasy, K. 397, where he ventures into the composer’s depths with a directness and gravity matched in the three sonatas—the hybrid F major, K. 533/494 and the great A minor, K. 310, where his nuanced playing eclipses his earlier recordings, and the D major, K. 311. The disc teems with special delights such as Brendel’s gorgeous singing slow movements, his telling use of Mozart’s apt pauses in the K. 311, and the relaxed, natural phrasing and runs in the F major sonata. This is by far Brendel’s best solo Mozart recording, enhanced by being one of the few that realistically captures his actual sound and timbre.
      Recently, Murray Perahia has also scaled higher peaks of interpretive insights. His new set of Schubert’s last three piano sonatas displays beautiful tone (he never resorts to banging, even in the most acerbic loud passages), crystal-clear articulation, and a new rhythmic tautness. The D. 958 and D. 959 sonatas are the highlights on this CD, Beethovenesque in their sweep and power. In the wrenching Andantino of the A major Sonata, D. 959, one of the most hair-raising depictions of the breakdown of rationality ever written, Perahia’s approach may seem coolly classical, eschewing the unbridled Romanticism more commonly heard, but his restraint actually intensifies its emotional power. The last of the trio, the great B flat minor, D. 960, disappoints. Perahia differentiates the first two long, slow movements but at the cost of making the Sonata’s first movement sound glib. Despite stunning pianism and a stirring finale, it seems an interpretation still being formed rather than a full-blown statement. But fresh sonics and two first-rate readings out of three make this highly recommendable.
DD
   
 
   
  Rainbow Body. Barber: Symphony No. 1. Copland: Suite from Appalachian Spring. Theofanidis: Rainbow Body. Higdon: blue cathedral. Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Robert Spano, conductor. Elaine Martone, producer; Jack Renner, engineer. Hybrid multichannel. Telarc 60596 (Sonic rating: 9)
  These days, Robert Spano is the most talked about American conductor of his generation and the Atlanta orchestra’s playing is consistently world-class. The upward trajectory of this partnership continues on the follow-up to their Grammy-winning A Sea Symphony. Spano and Atlanta give us Rainbow Body: something familiar (the Barber), something very familiar (the Copland), and two immediately appealing new compositions. The entire program has a youthful freshness and a distinctly American flavor. Samuel Barber wrote his First Symphony at 25, a 20-minute essay in one movement that’s concise, yet still Romantic in scale and outlook. Spano’s reading is propulsive, with lovely symphonic textures. His Appalachian Spring is a highly contrasted and emotionally potent performance, worthy of consideration alongside Bernstein’s 1961 recording (now available as a Sony multichannel SACD). The opening pages feature beautiful instrumental balances and colors, and a great sense of expectancy; the faster sections are emphatic and rhythmically pointed. The final rendering of “Simple Gifts” towards the end is noble, without seeming overblown.
      The two recent works, from Christopher Theofanidis (b. 1967) and Jennifer Higdon (b. 1962), are both powerful and knowingly constructed pieces that utilize a sophisticated but fully accessible harmonic language. For Rainbow Body the melodic material derives, the composer tells us, from the chant of Hildegard von Bingen—yet it seems to share some genetic material with a central theme from its Copland disc mate. It’s expertly scored, rising to a glorious conclusion. Higdon aims for a musical esthetic as big as the outdoors with her blue cathedral: “I found myself imagining a journey through a glass cathedral in the sky.” This moving and dramatically shaped work was commissioned to honor the 75th anniversary of the Curtis Institute but also serves as a tribute to Higdon’s prematurely deceased younger brother—there are moments of loving dialogue between clarinet (his instrument) and flute (Higdon’s).
      The surround mix is conservative for Telarc—and very successful. It’s like a stereo recording, but the most dimensional two-channel recording you’ve ever heard. Rear channels are sonically invisible; the soundfield extends from well behind the front speakers to a point just in front of the listening position. There’s great dynamic impact and a satisfying bottom end. The treble is a bit soft but, increasingly, I’m wondering about the role of my Sony player in this regard.
AQ
   
  Paris: La Belle Époque. Massenet: Meditation from Thaïs. Fauré: Sonata, Opus 13. Saint-Saëns: Havanaise. Franck: Sonata in A Major. Yo-Yo Ma, cello; Kathryn Stott, piano. Steven Epstein, producer; Richard King, engineer. Single-layer multichannel. Sony 87287 (Sonic rating: 6)
  Gathering these four staples of the late-Romantic French repertoire under the heading of Paris—La Belle Epoque is Yo-Yo Ma’s way of trying to distract attention from his greedy appropriation of violin territory: Everything here was originally written for the smaller, brighter, more agile instrument, though the Franck was transcribed for cello over a century ago and has long been considered a cello standard. Ma himself transcribed the other three items.
      In truth, the glorious Franck Sonata, with its vaulting melodies and richly glowing, stained-glass chromaticism—a work of august nobility and celestial splendor—does nicely with the cello’s baritone replacing the violin’s soprano. It benefits from the larger instrument’s greater warmth and regal ease in sustaining long, mellifluous lines. The cello conveys the high-minded Victorian sentiment of Massenet’s celebrated Meditation just as well, but seems a bit cumbersome for the fleeter Saint-Saëns and Fauré; this is painfully evident, despite Ma’s superb virtuosity, in the allegro vivo Scherzo of Fauré’s Opus 13 Sonata. One wonders why Ma couldn’t have chosen one of Fauré’s two perfectly fine cello sonatas.
      Amazingly, there is competition for the Franck Sonata—in the cello version, no less—on multichannel SACD. Pieter Wispelwey, with pianist Paolo Giacometti, performs it on Channel Classics 18602 (along with a Schumann piece originally for horn and the Brahms First Violin Sonata also arranged—absurdly—for cello). Yo-Yo Ma on Sony is more tightly focused and more intense, with cello attacks noticeably more incisive; Wispelwey on Channel Classics is smoother, sweeter, more introspective and atmospheric. These are two of the finest cellists in the world today, both with distinguished accompanists, and both enjoy engineering that adds the refinement, ambience, depth, and fullness at which SACD multichannel excels. That said, I prefer the Wispelwey, both the playing and sonics. The recording has a magic that simply draws me deeper into the music, and, in the rapturous central recitativo-fantasia—surely one of the most sublimely beautiful movements in all of Western art music—Wispelwey casts an enchantment that holds me transfixed every time I listen.
ML
   
  Beethoven: Symphony No. 5. Symphony No. 7. Vienna Philharmonic, Carlos Kleiber, conductor. Werner Mayer and Hans Weber, original producers; Andrew Wedman, new stereo and surround mixes. Hybrid multichannel. Deutsche Grammophon 471 639 (Sonic rating: 6)
  Puccini: La Bohème. Angela Gheorghiu (Mimi); Roberto Alagna (Rodolpho). La Scala Orchestra and chorus, Riccardo Chailly, conductor. Andrew Cornall, producer; Jonathan Stokes and Philip Siney, engineers and SACD mix. Hybrid multichannel. Decca 470 624 (Sonic rating: 3)
  Kleiber’s mid-1970s Beethoven symphony recordings are richly deserving of their “classic” status—at the same time emotionally direct and sensitive, nuanced, full of subtle shadings and inflections. The opening movement of No. 5 is furious, a rhythmic juggernaut; the subsequent Andante con moto alternates flowing lyricism and an imposing weightiness. The finale blazes triumphantly. All four movements of Symphony No. 7 are truly balletic. After an eloquently shaped introduction, the main body of the first movement has a joyous stride, as Kleiber introduces small accelerandos that contribute to the headlong rush. The Allegretto unfolds with an organic inevitability while the concluding Allegro con brio has an infectious swing.
      If the multichannel here sounds a little synthetic (which, generated from multimiked tapes, it is), it’s tastefully executed, with a sensible amount of reverberation in the rear channels. I actually prefer the stereo program—there’s more than enough spaciousness in the two-channel mix. The SACD has less of a bite and edge to the strings compared to the LPs (especially with No. 5), but there’s as much air, and instrumental signatures are just as appealing. The SACD version is at least the equal of the vinyl with dynamics; both the LPs and SACD are way ahead of the CD reissue (in DG’s “The Originals” series) in terms of refinement and lack of grain.
      To the best of my knowledge, this 1998 Bohème is the first full-length opera to appear in surround sound on SACD or DVD-A. While the performance won’t eclipse De los Angeles/Björling/ Beecham or Freni/Pavarotti/Karajan, it is an excellent one, strongly cast well beyond the superstar leads. Chailly leads with a terrific sense of dramatic impetus and attention to orchestral color. The DSD remastering characterizes the voices beautifully. But the multichannel presentation disappoints. Mostly, the singers are positioned in front of the orchestra, and that’s OK—I can accept this perspective as a “concert” performance (even though a more ambitious engineer might have taken a stab at portraying vocalists on a stage and orchestra in a pit between them and the listener). But episodically, voices appear in the surround channels in misguided attempts at staginess. Take, for instance, Mimi’s entrance in Act III when she pops up, coughing consumptively and then singing in the right rear channel, moving over the course of about 10 seconds up to the front. It’s irrational, annoying, confusing, and ultimately derails the dramatic flow of the action. A low grade for this one, sonically, for setting a bad example.
AQ
   
  George Lloyd: Fourth Symphony, “Arctic.” Albany Symphony Orchestra, George Lloyd, conductor. No producer credits. Albany Records TROY 498 (Sonic rating: 6)
  Roy Harris: Symphony No. 2. Morton Gould: Symphony No. 3. Albany Symphony Orchestra, David Alan Miller, conductor. Gregory Squires, producer and engineer. Albany Records TROY 515 (Sonic rating: 6)
  William Schuman: Credendum. Concerto for Piano and Orchestra. Symphony No. 4. Albany Symphony Orchestra, David Alan Miller, conductor; John McCabe, piano. Gregory Squires, producer and engineer. Albany Records TROY 566 (Sonic rating: 8)
  All: Hybrid Stereo.
  If ever composers fulfilled Arnold Schoenberg’s reassurance that there’s still plenty of music to be written in good old C major, it’s the four represented on this superb trio of SACDs from Albany Records. Despite considerable stylistic differences, their music is tonal, thematically and/or rhythmically driven, and traditional in form and structure. You’d even be forgiven for using the word “old-fashioned,” inasmuch as their aesthetic is romantic in the sense that they clearly believe music must be about something beyond itself: feelings, emotions, ideas, places and things, stories and dramas.
      The British composer George Lloyd is the most conservative—almost reactionary. If you weren’t told his “Arctic” symphony was written over a four-year period after his ship was struck by a torpedo in the North Atlantic during the Second World War, an incident that left him physically impaired and emotionally traumatized, you wouldn’t guess it from the music. Almost unvaryingly pretty, the symphony evokes the British pastoral idiom of early Vaughan Williams, Moeran, even Grainger; only the most benignly dissonant chords darken horizons otherwise blue and sunny. There are some epic ambitions that aren’t quite realized, the span of the last two movements rather exceeding their inspiration. During his career, Lloyd was criticized for his conservatism and for lacking a genuinely individual style, charges the “Arctic” by no means escapes. All the same, filled with “big tunes” so beloved of early-to-mid-Twentieth Century British composers, it affords much pleasure if you just allow yourself to bask in its sensuous warmth and sunlight. The Albany Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the composer, plays with great conviction and the 1989 recording is rich in atmosphere, with a very accommodating dynamic range.
      Whatever else you might say about the three Americans here, they are certainly not lacking in stylistic individuality, Roy Harris and William Schuman especially. Harris’s Second and Morton Gould’s Third Symphonies both suffered troubled births that resulted in premieres of compromised versions. David Alan Miller, Albany’s music director, reinstated the many cuts Harris himself made under duress and restored Gould’s original fourth movement. The Harris doesn’t represent his best work, its ideas rather too insistently stated, but it certainly deserves this fine performance. The big surprise is the Gould Third, an imaginative piece, full of sharp wit and mordant irony, with one of the most inventive scherzos written by any composer of the last century. Known mostly for pops-oriented scores, Gould plainly had some chops as a serious composer (his greatest advocate was Dimitri Mitropoulos, no less).
      Schuman’s solid craftsmanship and disciplined manipulation of classic forms are all the more remarkable given that he never heard a classical concert until he was nineteen. The compositions in this collection are three-movement structures (typically fast-slow-fast), characterized by his uniquely New York kind of electric energy. Credendum is a strong declamatory work scored for huge orchestra with augmented brass, wind, and percussion (including steel plates), while the Piano Concerto (John McCabe the probing soloist) is a moving chamber piece. The intense Symphony No. 4, much admired by Copland, begins in somber tones and ends with a flourish in the form of— shades of Schoenberg—a C major chord.
      Released in SACD but derived from stereo PCM sources, the clean, transparent recordings ideally mediate proximity and soundstage, with superior definition. The Schuman, in particular, is of reference quality. The Albany plays with dedication, skill, and an apposite bite to the sonority, while Miller’s conducting is rhythmically incisive and expressively alert. These are two of the most important recordings of modern American music in recent years. Paul Seydor
   
 
   
  Elgar/Payne: Symphony No. 3. Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Paul Daniel, conductor. Andrew Walton, producer; Tony Faulkner, engineer. Naxos 5.110003 (Sonic Rating: 5)
  Shostakovich: The Bolt. Jazz Suites Nos. 1 & 2. Tahiti Trot. Russian State Symphony Orchestra, Dmitry Yablonsky, conductor. Lubiv Doronina, producer; Aleksander Karasec, engineer. Naxos 5.110006 (Sonic Rating: 8)
  When Anthony Payne’s “elaboration” of the sketches for Elgar’s never-completed Symphony No. 3—and its first recording, from Andrew Davis and the BBC Symphony Orchestra—burst onto the scene five years ago, two questions were frequently raised. First, (given the composer’s well-known, if ambivalent, deathbed pronouncement in 1934 that no one should “tinker” with his unfinished opus) should it have been done? And second, as it has been done, how good was it? The answers, to most fair-minded listeners, seem to be “yes” and “quite good.” The Elgar family ultimately supported the project, and Payne’s 55-minute creation is remarkably coherent, especially if you consider that he had a lot less to go on than Deryck Cooke did for his performing version of Mahler’s Tenth. The composer’s spirit pervades every page; both the Edwardian stolidity and a Wagnerian harmonic richness—as just one example, take the striving melody that serves as the first movement’s second subject. The darkly somber Adagio solenne is quite successful; the finale, which required the most inventiveness on Payne’s part, offers characteristic marching figures and a soulful hymn-like theme that sticks in the mind long after the piece ends. Paul Daniels conducts with feeling and insight, and the Bournemouth orchestra is a full-voiced and technically accomplished ensemble. This performance isn’t that far off the standard set by my current favorite, Colin Davis (on LSO Live).
      The material on the Shostakovich DVD-A may come as a revelation to those who know the composer from monumental symphonies and anguished, encrypted string quartets. Shostakovich, in fact, had a real affinity for popular idioms; but if all the music here is on the lighter side, none of it is trivial. (Well, maybe Tahiti Trot, an arrangement of “Tea for Two” that Shostakovich orchestrated in 40 minutes on a bet, isn’t one for the ages.) Best is the eight-movement suite from The Bolt, a tale of industrial sabotage—scintillating, tuneful, and brilliantly scored, utilizing the language of the First Symphony and The Age of Gold. The two Jazz Suites are immediately appealing as well, though don’t expect evocations of Duke Ellington or Charlie Parker: What we get is more like Offenbach and Kurt Weill. The more substantial Suite No. 2 was assembled by the composer from various film scores, ballets, and theater works, and includes a waltz used prominently in the final Stanley Kubrick film, Eyes Wide Shut.
      Both DVD-As were original multichannel recordings (a stereo version is included as well, of course, along with 5.1 MLP, DTS, and AC3 programs). The Elgar’s surround sound is no more dimensional than a good two-channel effort, and instrumental textures aren’t especially refined. But the Shostakovich disc is a real winner, sonically as well as musically—very atmospheric and spacious, yet loaded with detail.
AQ
 
Bach: The Four Great Toccatas and Fugues. Biggs, organ. Sony 87983 (9) (TAS 143)
Patricia Barber: Modern Cool. Mobile Fidelity Hybrid Stereo 2003 (8) (TAS 137)
Beck: Sea Change. Geffen 0694935372 (9) (TAS 141)
Big Brother and the Holding Company: Cheap Thrills. Legacy 65784 (8)
John Coltrane: Soultrane. Mobile Fidelity 2020 (8) (TAS 143)
Sam Cooke: All the ABKCO Remastered Collection Hybrid Stereo titles. (review, this issue)
Dvorák: Symphonies 8 & 9 (Fischer). Philips 470 617 (9) (review, TAS 142)
Exceptional Masterpieces. Combattimento Consort. Bona Nova 10011 (9) (Golden Ear, TAS 139)
Bill Evans: Waltz For Debby. Analogue Productions Hybrid Stereo 9399 (8) (TAS 136)
Alison Krauss: Now That I’ve Found You. Rounder Hybrid Stereo 0325 (9) (Golden Ear, TAS 139)
Love & Lament (Cappella Figuralis). Channel Classics 17002 (9) (TAS 137)
Natalie MacMaster: In My Hands. Rounder Hybrid Stereo 7025 (8) (TAS 137)
Mahler: Symphony No. 1 (Tilson Thomas). SFS Media 0002 (10) (TAS 139)
Music of Turina and Debussy (Lopez-Cobos). Telarc 60574 (9) (TAS 135)
Art Pepper: Meets the Rhythm Section. Analogue Productions Hybrid Stereo 7532 (8) (TAS 140)
The Police: Outlandos d’Amour. A&M Single-layer Stereo 493 602 (8) (TAS 141)
Poulenc: Concerto for Organ. Linn Records CKD 180 (9) (TAS 138)
Rainbow Body. Barber. Copland. Theofanidis. Telarc 60596 (9) (review, this issue)
The Rolling Stones: All 20 ABKCO studio records and collections. ABKCO Hybrid Stereo (TAS 138)
Rossini: Famous Overtures (Marriner). PentaTone 5186 106 (9) (TAS 142)
Saint-Saëns/Tchaikovsky/Bruch: Cello Works. Channel (10) (Golden Ear, TAS 133)
Stravinsky/Brahms: Violin Concertos (Hahn). Sony 89649 (8) (Recording of the Issue, TAS 135)
Vaughan Williams: A Sea Symphony. Telarc 60588 (8) (TAS 138)
 
Deacon John’s Jump Blues. AIX 81004 (9) (review, this issue)
Grateful Dead: Workingman’s Dead. Warner Brothers 78356 (9) (TAS 135)
Mickey Hart: Best Of: Over the Edge and Back. Rykodisc 10494 (10) (TAS 137)
John McEuen and Jimmy Ibbotson: Nitty Gritty Surround. AIX 80008 (8) (TAS 135)
R.E.M.: Automatic for the People. Warner Brothers 78175 (8) (TAS 140)
John Williams: A.I. Warner Brothers 48096 (9) (TAS 135)
Zephyr: Voices Unbound. AIX 80012 (10) (Golden Ear, TAS 139)
   

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