Orchestral reviews

striking similarity to a viol consort is deliberate – the playing in general is carefully cultured, with hesitant moments not entirely obscured by the echo of Montreal’s Church of the Most Holy Name of Jesus – but it sounds alien to me. You need to have your wits about you

just when wits should be scrambled to stop Bruckner’s heroically achieved C major from twisting awkwardly into the C sharp minor of the Seventh’s Adagio, a dubious extra which only allows me to affirm Richard Osborne’s verdict of “comatose.”

Peter Quantrill

Corp

Symphony No 1. Piano Concerto No 1a.

Guernsey Postcards

aLeon McCawley pf Royal

Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra / Ronald Corp

Dutton Epoch M CDLX7233 (66’ • DDD)

Corp’s vivid pieces are given impressive readings by the RLPO

Ronald Corp has established a formidable reputation as a conductor, particularly of choirs, notably of children’s choirs. Yet increasingly, Corp has devoted himself to composition, and this is the second disc of his music to be issued on the Dutton label. The most immediately appealing of the three

items here is the relatively lightweight Guernsey Postcards, written in 2004. As Corp explains in the booklet-note, these colourful pieces were inspired by his visits to Guernsey. Each movement is under five minutes long, together forming a miniature sinfonietta. The “Vlaer Marchi” celebrates a lively Guernsey event, the second, “Pembroke Bay”, is reflective, starting with a bassoon solo, while the third pictures the bustling St Peter Port in an overtly minimalist style with ostinato repetitions. Altogether a charming work. Symphony No 1 is even more recent,

written in 2009, and offers a wholly weightier vision, starting with an ominously dark slow introduction lasting just over eight minutes, calling attention with strong gestures. That leads without a break into another slow section beginning with an attractive sequence for strings alone which brings echoes of the Third Symphony of Roy Harris. Then comes the jolly Scherzo with running triplets and off-beat syncopations, while the fourth section of this work in one massive movement brings an optimistic conclusion in a firm major key. Piano Concerto No 1, superbly played

with Leon McCawley as soloist and the RLPO in excellent form, is more problematic. Though the first movement, as the composer describes it, consists of a substantial slow introduction followed by a movement in “loose sonata form”, the trouble is that the thematic material is not striking enough for the ear to register any

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structural links. The second movement with piano flourishes over slow chords builds up to a big climax, and leads to a finale which might roughly be described as like Shostakovich with an English accent. Dutton is certainly to be congratulated on offering such a worthwhile disc of British music otherwise likely to be neglected, superbly played and vividly recorded.

Edward Greenfield

Elgar

Violin Concerto, Op 61

Nikolaj Znaider vn Staatskapelle Dresden / Sir Colin Davis

RCA Red Seal F 88697 60588-2 (50’ • DDD)

Selected comparisons:

Kennedy, Handley (12/84R ) (EMI)

331049-2 Sammons, Wood (9/99) (PEAR) GEM0050 Ehnes, A Davis (1/08) (ONYX) ONYX4025 Menuhin, Elgar (NAXO) 8

110902

A reading full of colour and variety but lacking a truly Elgarian spirit

Star violinist Nikolaj Znaider has certainly been recording with A-listers recently: Brahms and Korngold with Gergiev and the Vienna Philharmonic, and now Sir Colin Davis and the Dresden Staatskapelle for the Elgar Concerto in this, the centenary of its premiere. There’s a further link with the past, in that Znaider’s instrument is none other than the one Kreisler used to premiere the work in November 1910, an experience that audiences around the world will be able to share, as Znaider is touring the concerto during the course of this year. It would have been intriguing to have been at

the sessions to find out who led the way interpretatively, or whether it was a truly democratic effort. Certainly, Davis’s introduction sets the tone for the reading as a whole, with plenty of detail on show, no sense of hurry, lots of colouristic variety and free rubato. Vernon Handley finds just as much detail, but here the abiding impression is of certainty of direction: an art that conceals art. Of course flexibility per se is not a bad thing – just listen to Elgar’s own recording with Menuhin. And when Znaider’s moment finally arrives he doesn’t disappoint, his opening statement one of supreme beauty, his tone utterly alluring. But this is also a performance full of

gestures – it’s quite public playing, highly projected, despite the fact that in many respects the work is very intimate; Ehnes gets that intimacy better, and his virtuosity is more understated. Elgar’s score is full of detail, of indications of rubato, of tempo changes, of dynamics, and these are fully projected by Znaider and Davis, their joy in the piece almost too evident, with a tendency to give pause as each new significant idea arrives. Similarly,

IN THE STUDIO

Hallé Wagner!

Following theirGramophone Award-winning release

of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius (1/09), Sir Mark Elder and the Hallé Orchestra have turned to an even larger-scale vocal work, Wagner’sGötterdämmerung. Microphones were moved into the orchestra’s home hall for the series of concerts and, interestingly, the release will be made available as a one-disc MP3 set, as well as the traditional five-CD option. A full libretto is available with both, but only as a PDF with the MP3 version. The cast includes Katarina Dalayman as Brünnhilde, Lars Cleveman as Siegfried and Attila Jun as Hagen. The concerts were recorded last May, so watch out for the May release.

The Dorics return

The February issue ofGramophone recognised five

of today’s most exciting young string quartets, one of which was the much-heralded Doric Quartet. Any new converts to their cause following that issue, as well as longstanding admirers of course, will be thrilled to learn of their first recording for Chandos. The label will release the quartet playing Korngold’s String Quartets Nos 1-3 in September. With several recent high-profile Korngold issues in recent months, not least Nikolaj Znaider playing the Violin Concerto on Sony (7/09), alongside several other recent versions, could the composer’s long rehabilitation finally be starting to take hold?

Brewer’s Strauss

Fans of Christine Brewer are in for a double treat

later this year as the American soprano takes to the studios twice, for two labels. Telarc will release “Strauss: Arias” in the UK in August (a month after the US release). Donald Runnicles conducts the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. And for Chandos, Brewer will be back on Strauss territory for an English-language recording ofAriadne on Naxos. The September release is conducted by the (thus far) under-recorded Sir Richard Armstrong, with a cast that also includes Alice Coote as the Composer and Robert Dean Smith as Bacchus. Opera in English’s great Nabucco, Alan Opie, returns here as the Music Master.

Pergolesi year

Claudio Abbado may have declared 2010 Pergolesi

year (the Italian composer will be his focus in this anniversary year – see page 98) but he is not alone in his admiration for Pergolesi, who was, indeed, one of Verdi’s musical idols. The star Slovenian mezzo Bernarda Fink has recorded his Stabat mater for Harmonia Mundi. Completing the line-up are soprano Anna Prohaska, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and concertmaster Bernard Forck. Fink was most recently praised inGramophone as a superb Idamante in René Jacobs’s Idomeneo (8/09).

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