Karlowicz M.: Symphonic Poems, Vol. 1
(Naxos 8.570452)

Mieczyslaw Karlowicz was a leading figure of the modernist school in turn-of-the-20th-century Poland, who made a significant contribution to the then prevalent late-Romantic style, before his early death in an avalanche at the age of 33.

In warmly robust recordings, these performances of three of his opulent orchestral works are every bit the equal of those in Chandos's acclaimed Karlowicz series, with the addition of some winningly characterful playing from the Polish musicians, especially the woodwind. Antoni Wit lovingly shapes the music, a mixture of grand gestures and memorable themes, and brings out all the colour of Karlowicz's luminous orchestral writing.

Telegraph, Matthew Rye
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/08/02/bmclasscds102.xml

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No 3: Piano Concerto in D Major, Op. 61a, (Mustonen)
(Ondine: ODE1123-5)

The Finnish pianist-composer-conductor Olli Mustonen is as noted for his eccentricity as for his radicalism. The quirk when it comes to his Beethoven concerto cycle - this is the second instalment - is his inclusion of the so-called Concerto in D Major, which is, in fact, a piano version of the Violin Concerto that Beethoven prepared for the pianist and publisher Muzio Clementi. Though Mustonen plays it with enthusiasm, it arouses mixed feelings. The writing only becomes genuinely pianistic in the cadenzas - they are phenomenal - and in the newly composed transition from slow movement to finale. Mustonen's performance of the Third Concerto, however, is one of the finest on disc: big-hearted and free from the Haydnesque prissiness that some interpreters bring to the work. The Tapiola Sinfonietta's playing is sensational, too.

The Guardian (Guardian.co.uk), Tim Ashley
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/aug/08/classicalreview.beethoven

Lawes, W.: Harpe Consorts Nos. 1-11; Suite
(ATMA Classique: ACD22372)

The viola da gamba usually sounds to me like a dying cow, but William Lawes was a very interesting composer, consistently interesting melodically and harmonically. In addition, the less dusky timbre of the harp and the baroque violin makes a very effective foil to the gambas in these invariably inventive pieces. It's an open question just how complete the consorts are as they have come down to us. Some, such as Concerto 7, have one brief movement, while others, such as No. 3, are complete baroque dance suites. Most interesting are the movements in variation form ("divisions") such as we find in Consorts Nos. 8, 9, and 10, where the interplay between harp, violin, and gamba reaches delectable heights of invention.

The reason that these pieces have not previously appeared on disc in a complete collection has to do with the amount of reconstruction necessary to present the entire series in its most complete form. Trust me: you won't be able to tell which bits feature some conjectural filling in. The editorial work has been done very sensitively, and the performances are "authentic" but never at the expense of musicality. The players of Les Voix Humaines and harpist Maxine Eilander really "play off" of each other, and they are extremely well recorded. It makes good sense to arrange the consorts in sets according to key (G major, D minor, D major, and G minor), as there seems to be no particular point to their numbering. It truly sounds as if everyone involved is having a very good time, and you will too.

Classics Today, David Hurwitz
http://www.classicstoday.com/review.asp?ReviewNum=11877

Shostakovich: Cello Concertos
(Phoenix Edition: Phoenix128)

Dimitri Maslennikov (b. 1980) is a very fine young cellist. This new recording of the two Shostakovich concertos shows him to great advantage. He has all the virtuosity these works demand; they were both written for Rostropovich, remember. He also has the insight of a much older musician in his view of the works.

The two works couldn’t be more different. The first is bright and extrovert. It possesses a haunting slow movement, a brilliant cadenza given a movement all to itself, and two very vital outer movements. Almost as soon as it was heard it was recorded by its dedicatee and this performance is still available: Sony BMG MHK 63327, conducted by Eugene Ormandy – coupled with the première recording of the 1st Violin Concerto with Oistrakh and Mitropoulos. Both performances are essential listening and set a benchmark for these works.

The 2nd Cello Concerto is much more subdued. It’s imbued with resignation and sadness. Apart from a short, Russian dance of a scherzo, the two outer movements are, in general, withdrawn and elusive. A reasonably sized orchestra is used in chamber music combinations and there is little respite from the continual darkness. Unlike its partner, it was some time before it was recorded, again by the dedicatee, this time with Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra: Deutsche Grammophon 431 475 – there are also three other Rostropovich recordings of the work currently available.

The most recent performances I heard of these works were by Tortelier and Mørk in the EMI 3 CD set of Shostakovich’s complete concertos (EMI CLASSICS 5 09428 2). I have to report that Maslennikov is superior to the former and more insightful than the latter.

The 1st Concerto has some fiendish passage-work in the fast movements, not to mention hair-raising multiple stoppings whilst accompanying the solo horn. Tortelier never sounded at home here but Maslennikov is totally in control. No matter what challenge the composer throws at him he can easily overcome the difficulties. The performance of the slow movement is restrained; the winsome first theme is quite engaging in its simple way. At the end, where the theme is played in harmonics, and in duet with the celesta (rather backwardly balanced), the effect is quite magical. Maslennikov handles the cadenza, third, movement with ease – again throwing off the difficulties with aplomb. In the finale the orchestra really comes into its own. I should add that this is the clearest recording of the orchestral accompaniment I’ve ever heard. All caution is thrown to the wind and this helter-skelter, manic and wildly exuberant approach really suits this music. This performance is a triumph.

A quiet recitative for the soloist opens the 2nd Concerto to which Shostakovich adds the darkest of woodwind sounds. It’s all quite oppressive. From this bleak start is built a long, slow, movement, which is unrelenting in its austerity. Maslennikov plays with such intensity that he makes you want to keep listening – discovering each new turn of the music with him. He creates a forward momentum as we pass through the barren landscape. The middle section, with its flecks of woodwind sound, accompanied by xylophone, is quite disturbing in its ghostly fashion. The climax is well built, the orchestra taking charge with the soloist making pathetic comments, only to give way to a very strange cadenza accompanied by bass drum. Then we’re back to the music of the opening, revised and revisited. It’s all profoundly troubling, thanks, in no small part, to an excellent performance, full of insight.

The scherzo is given in a straightforward way, which heightens the tensions and makes the listener very uneasy. The finale is another odd concoction. There’s a twisted fanfare - the kind of thing I always expect at the moment when Shakespeare writes a tucket is heard - a gentle lullaby in 6/8 which always resolves into a commonplace cadence and a wild repetition of the scherzo’s tune for full orchestra. The end is quite unusual in that Shostakovich recalls the percussion music from the end of the middle movement of the 4th Symphony. Despite all these disparate elements Shostakovich makes a very convincing whole.

All in all, this is a superb disk. Maslennikov displays a strong technique and a fine sound. He is especially enjoyable above the stave. However, on occasion, due to the excitement created the value of rests is cut short as he plunges onwards. In the last movement of the 2nd Concerto the important percussion parts (from the 4th Symphony) are far too distant. Indeed, some of them were inaudible at the volume I was playing the disk and this allowed the full orchestra to really let rip when necessary – small reservations. Excellent playing from Maslennikov. Outstanding playing from the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra. Magnificent direction from Christoph Eschenbach.

MusicWeb International, Bob Briggs
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2008/Sept08/Shostakovich_Phoenix128.htm

Skalkottas, N.: Concerto for 2 Violins; Concertino for 2 Pianos; Morceau characteristique
(B.I.S: BIS-CD-1554)

Over the last decade Bis has been working its way through the works of the Greek composer Nikos Skalkottas (1904-49), who studied with Schoenberg in the late 1920s and early 30s, and returned to Athens to work on his own method of serial composition, but whose music mostly went unperformed in his lifetime. Even today, much of his huge yet uneven output remains hardly known, and previous issues in this series have been hit-and-miss affairs. This, though, is very much one of the hits. The Concerto for Two Violins was composed at the end of the second world war, though Skalkottas never wrote out a full score and the orchestration was only completed after his death. It's an extraordinarily dense and ambitious piece, with distinct neoclassical outlines but binding the two solo instruments into the constantly shifting, close-meshed orchestral textures, and providing just a glimpse of light in the central slow movement, which quotes from a Greek popular song. The two-piano Concertino from 1935 is more obviously Schoenbergian in its keyboard and orchestral writing, and so less personal in its style, but both works suggest a genuinely original musical voice.

Andrew Clements, The Guardian (Guardian.co.uk)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/sep/19/classicalmusicandopera3

Toccata Classics – Tovey Chamber Music Volume 1
(Toccata Classics: TOCC0068)

Sir Donald Francis Tovey (1875-1940) wrote these piano trios aged barely twenty years. Born at Eton College where his father taught Classics, Tovey surprisingly did not attend school, his piano teacher, Miss Sophie Weisse, having persuaded his father, by then Rector of Worplesdon, Surrey, to have him educated at home. Miss Weisse took care of the musical education and young Donald was taught other subjects by various tutors in the area. His first taste of social education came when he went up to Balliol College, Oxford on a scholarship for promising musicians; he graduated in “Greats” his tutors compromising by awarding him a third-class degree, the historians believing he deserved a fourth, the philosophers a first.

While Tovey became well-known as a pianist and composer, and made a couple of recordings for the National Gramophone Society in 1928, he is better known for his writings on music and his editions of piano works, perhaps most notably the Associated Board’s of Bach’s 48 Preludes and Fugues published in 1924 and in print ever since. Toccata Classics has embarked on a series of recordings of Tovey’s music, this being the third release, the other two including the Cello Concerto (1932-3) and the Symphony (1913), and this gives an opportunity to experience the music of a figure who was so important a part of music in Britain in first half of the twentieth-century.

These early chamber works, issued as Volume One of Tovey’s chamber music, are remarkably mature and exquisitely written, though dependent on Brahms’s influence to a greater or lesser degree. Lyrical and romantic, passionate and rhapsodic, they repay repeated listening. The Opus One Piano Trio was submitted with other works for consideration for the Mendelssohn Scholarship in 1895 soon after Tovey had arrived in Oxford, and though he was not awarded the scholarship, the work was performed in June with Tovey at the piano. It’s a substantial work lasting nearly forty minutes; the first movement opens Maestoso, and sets the scene with all the confidence of youth. The second movement is a minuet and trio, the former light, the latter darker in colour. The third movement ‘Rhapsodia’ serves as the scherzo, and the Allegro ma non troppo finale is in binary form, a skipping Brahmsian theme for the first subject returning later very passionately.

The C minor Trio was also written in 1895 (the dates for both works are incorrect on the insert), though originally set for piano, clarinet and horn; this version appeared in 1912 when Schott published both this and the original. This is another substantial piece, lasting nearly half-an-hour. The first movement is in sonata form and the mood is set with the description of ‘Style tragique’ as applied by Schott on publication. A moving Largo serves as the second movement and the last is a meaty Allegro non tanto again with stormy passion.

These two accomplished works are performed superbly by the London Piano Trio and were recorded in the fine acoustics of Potton Hall. There is an excellent booklet note by Peter R. Shore, who produced the project, which are accompanied by Tovey’s own analysis of these works. This issue is highly recommended and augurs well for further releases in this series, which I look forward to hearing with eager anticipation.

ClassicalSource.com, Peter Joelson
http://www.classicalsource.com/db_control/db_cd_review.php?id=6215