Classical CDs: Shipping lines, sabre dances and sea lice

Donizetti: Songs Vols. 3 & 4  Michael Spyres (tenor), Carlo Rizzi (piano) – Vol. 3, Marie-Nicole Lemieux (mezzo-soprano), Giulio Zappa (piano) – Vol. 4. (Opera Rara)

“The songs Donizetti poured forth during his composing career have [..] been unjustly neglected…. In their totality these compositions make a powerful case for Donizetti as a key figure in nineteenth-century domestic music-making,” writes Roger Parker, who acts as repertoire consultant to Opera Rara, and is in the process of establishing a new critical edition of them.  Opera Rara is releasing a total of eight volumes, or virtually 200 songs in total, many of them previously unrecorded, so Volumes 3 and 4 bring the undertaking to its half-way mark.  Parker expresses relief that libraries in Paris, Naples, and in Donizetti’s native city of Bergamo have all digitised their manuscript collections. Without that, the enterprise could have taken decades.

The flow of melodic invention from the composer never dries up, but these two volumes are different. If the listener is in the mood for a flow of beautiful, exquisitely produced tone, with the words and dramatic situations secondary, then the Michael Spyres - normally billed as a ‘baritenor’ but here as ‘tenor - absolutely never disappoints. If on the other hand the need is for more drama, more involvement, more variety and uncertainty then go with Marie-Nicole Lemieux. With her, even a simple strophic song with gondolas  like “Sull’onda cheta e bruna” becomes a both a dramatic scena and a showpiece. The pianists for both singers are exceptional and production quality is superb. We occasionally get a pleasant surprise from a guest – like organist Edward Batting on the harmonium – and the amount of work that has gone into filling the booklets with good writing and scholarly resource is unbelievable. Sebastian Scotney

Khachaturian: Piano Concerto in D flat etc Jean-Yves Thibaudet (piano), Los Angeles Philharmonic/Gustavo Dudamel (Decca)

My parents always watched BBC1’s The Onedin Line, a long-running 1970s nautical saga with the “Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia” from Aram Khachaturian’s epic ballet Spartacus as its title music. It’s a belter of a tune, and hearing it in Jean-Yves Thibaudet’s solo piano transcription nearly tipped me over the edge. If you’re new to this repertoire, seek out the sumptuous Decca recording of Khachaturian ballet suites with the composer conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. Hopefully you’ll be hooked, and keen to acquire this glittering new disc containing the 1936 Piano Concerto, a once-popular piece that’s fallen out of fashion. Thibaudet describes it “as a beautiful piece composed in difficult times”, and a work that he first planned to record several decades ago. The wait was worthwhile: Iyad Sughayer’s recent BIS version with Andrew Litton accompanying filled a useful gap, but Gustavo Dudamel’s Los Angeles Philharmonic inevitably outshine Litton’s hardworking BBC NOW rivals. Thibaudet and Dudamel are especially convincing in the concerto’s darker corners, the first movement’s final minutes packing a huge punch here. Khachaturian’s exotic “Andante con anima” really sings, the musical saw nicely audible. It makes a haunting, unearthly sound – imagine an analogue-era theremin or Ondes Martenot. The finale’s tempo and metre changes are tackled with beefy relish, remarkably so considering that the concerto was taped live. This isn’t music which plumbs the depths, but it’s an imposing, big-hearted work which deserves to be played more often.

Thibaudet couples it with more solo pieces. Oscar Levant’s brilliant transcription of the ubiquitous “Sabre Dance” from Gayaneh is noisy fun, the flipside to a tender recasting of the same ballet’s lilting “Lullaby”. We get a selection of Khachaturian’s delightful Pictures of Childhood, including, surprisingly, a number used by Kubrick in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Thibaudet’s own arrangement of the five-movement Masquerade Suite is a treat, the closing “Gallop” dispatched with dizzying panache. Great fun, and highly recommended.

Mozart: Concertos for Two Pianos K.365 and K.242, Sonata for Two Pianos K.448 Fiametta Tarli and Ivo Varbanov (pianos), English Chamber Orchestra/Muhai Tang (Orchid Classics)

Mozart’s K.365 Concerto for Two Pianos was conceived as something he could play with his sister Nannerl, a talented pianist whose musical career came to a halt at the age of 18, Leopold Mozart insisting that she withdraw and devote her energies to finding an affluent husband. Completed in 1779, Mozart revised the concerto several years later for performances with his pupil Josepha von Auernhammer. Best to ignore Mozart’s misogynistic comments; he clearly respected Auernhammer’s musical abilities and also composed the K.448 Sonata for Two Pianos to play with her. The concerto is an appealing work, trumpets and timpani lending the opening tutti a disarming grandeur – this is an affable, big-hearted piece. Fiametta Tarli and Ivo Varbanov use a pair of Steingraeber-Phoenix instruments, their soft, mellow timbre a good match for Muhai Tang’s well-drilled English Chamber Orchestra. Coordination is as good as you’d expect from a husband-and-wife duo; we’re obviously hearing two musicians, but they play as one.

Sample their superbly-drilled teamwork in the Sonata: listening through headphones is like eavesdropping on a conversation. This performance has an irresistible momentum; outer movements sparkle and the “Andante” has a delicious swing. There’s also Mozart’s K.242 Concerto, originally scored for three players and later reworked for performances with Nannerl. This is a more intimate work with a sublime “Adagio” at its centre. Tarli and Varbanov understand what they’re dealing with, their performance delectably light-footed but never sounding glib. There’s a lovely moment a minute before the concerto’s close where the orchestra drops out and the soloists take stock for a few seconds, brilliantly managed here. A charming disc, and wonderfully engineered in London’s Henry Wood Hall.

Sibelius: Works for Violin and Orchestra James Ehnes (violin), Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/Edward Gardner (Chandos)

Putting all of Sibelius’s music for violin and orchestra on a single CD makes so much sense, this brilliant Chandos album lasting just short of 80 minutes. I’ll confess to being a Sibelius obsessive who took years to fully appreciate the Violin Concerto. Pekka Kuusisto’s wonderful Ondine recording was my gateway drug, and I’ll put this new James Ehnes disc alongside it on the shelf. One reason for loving it is the wonderfully rich, dark orchestral backing provided by Edward Gardner’s Bergen Philharmonic, lower horns and strings rightly prominent in the mix, and Ehnes is superbly balanced by veteran engineer Ralph Couzens. Sample the very opening, the orchestral strings reduced to a whisper over the solo violin’s first entry. Ehnes makes it sound like a Finnish take on Scheherazade, ensnaring unwary listeners. Sibelius’s frequent tempo changes are seamlessly handled by Gardner and the long first movement never sprawls, the gnarly coda especially impressive. Listen out for the low horn writing which accompanies Ehnes’s first entry in the “Adagio di molto”, the movement’s impassioned climax something to savour. The finale is a winning blend of wit and heft – you need to hear this performance.

The couplings are superb. It’s interesting to learn that Sibelius briefly considered writing a second concerto in the early 1920s. That never came to fruition, but we’ve another 40 minutes of concertante violin music which almost plugs the gap. Best are the six Humoresques, published in two sets in 1917: quirky, evocative mood pieces which, though light in tone, show Sibelius composing at full tilt. They’re full of earworms, my favourites being No. 2’s “Allegro assai”, unfolding like a miniature concerto finale, and the slow, enigmatic No.4. The Two Serenades were composed five year earlier, the second one a shadowy dance recalling the concerto’s finale. The Op.77 Two Pieces are attractive but less recognisably Sibelian, and the album closer, the charming Op.117 Suite in D minor feels as if it was written on autopilot, and certainly not by a composer who’d created the otherworldly tone poem Tapiola just a few years before. It’s fascinating to hear the work, though, Ehnes a persuasive advocate. A superb anthology, nicely annotated.

Slide Action: RE:BUILD (NMC)

I began listening to RE:BUILD without reading the notes, marvelling at trombone quartet Slide Action’s eloquent performance of the “March” from Purcell’s Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary. At 1’50” things get a bit weird, Purcell’s noble chorale dissolving thanks to some juicy wrong notes and mischievous electronics. The juxtaposition of old and new reminded me of Berio’s wonderful Rendering; here, the Purcellian dregs flowing straight into “C. Exigua” by Ryan Latimer, five minutes of infectiously strange music inspired by a parasitic sea louse. Four other new commissions are separated by three interludes composed by quartet members. The first, Jamie Tweed’s “Smooth Place, Cool Drink”, sounds in places as if it’s electronically manipulated, though the colour shifts and microtones are achieved naturally. It segues into Laura Jurd’s jazzy “Swamped”, that work’s soft closing chord leading into Benny Vernon’s second interlude, “Sit”. This explores the effects achievable by subtly manipulating a Harmon mute in the trombone’s bell, the overtones and harmonics shifting magically. And what’s not to love about a work opening with recordings of Slide Action’s four members “playing on their respective favourite chairs with found objects”?

“Close Palms” by Emily Hall grips, the higher voices slowly climbing into daylight above a repeated rhythmic figure. Gripping stuff, followed by Josh Cirtina’s “Interlude III” – sublime transcription of a piece of 17^th century viol music by Matthew Locke with a starring role for muted bass trombone. Alex Paxton’s “Hairy Pony Estampie” is the showstopper, an upbeat, virtuosic take on a medieval dance form which “mimics some of the bodily contortions one has to make as a trombonist… sweaty and unpredictable”. “Playing Frisbee May 2022” by Joanna Marsh includes snatches of a phone recording showing Ward and Slide Action playing, err, frisbee outside Snape Maltings, this seven-minute miniature an exploration of games and rules, both simple and complex. It’s rare to find a contemporary music anthology where every new work so surely hits the mark, and this is an album that you’ll want return to often. Playing and production values are superb – can we have more from this source, please?

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